Cyber attack take two.

Snapping at the heels of a sustained ransomware cyber-attack attributed to virtually bringing the NHS to its knees, and with many other businesses infected world-wide, we now experience yet another attack, this time on parliament.

It transpires that many email accounts were hacked due to a weakness in the quality of user passwords set. And again today, we see another ransomware attack similar to the first a month ago. Although this time it is being reported that in addition to exploiting the same vulnerability as before, this ransomware attack also found another way to wreak havoc. (Details on this new development to follow…).

Now, my understanding is that the hackers attacked a vulnerability due to a ‘patch’ not having been installed. A free upgrade! Mind you, when I see or here the word ‘patch’ – it doesn’t exactly instil confidence in me. It kind of conjures up a ‘sticky plaster’ approach to fix a very serious problem.

This upgrade to fix this vulnerability was provided by Microsoft months ago. Whilst I can understand some companies are slow on the uptake (but they shouldn’t be) and reluctant to upgrade because of the potential ramifications this may bring, such as the knock on effect of system failures and complications from bespoke hardware and software – (believe me I’ve been there and suffered the consequences of working this through in my past IT life).

Surely though, these companies must have learned their lesson the first time round and at the very least would want to try and protect against it happening to them? Let’s face it, it was very well documented. If this is the case – it must raise a very serious concern – that after a major attack such as this, why are businesses still exposed for a second round of attacks based on the vulnerability exposed by the first?

Didn’t they do their homework after the first attack? I know there are numerous cyber-attacks on a daily basis – but this was well documented and yet it still managed to infect many big name company’s – even on the second attempt. Will we learn from this and prevent a possible third…fourth…fifth attack… or more even – based on the vulnerabilities left exposed that a simple upgrade would fix?

This isn’t easy to control and it’s an ever growing sinister development in our ever increasing use of the internet and associated technology. I fear though, there is much more and much worse to come. We need to at least do the simple things to help prevent and thwart such cyber-attacks. At the simplest level we can install upgrades, be careful opening ‘suspicious’ emails, install and keep our internet security up to date but above all… we can BACKUP our precious data!

Go get it done! More on this to follow…