Are vet practices vulnerable to WannaCry?

RE: Are vet practices vulnerable to WannaCry?

Martin McDowell — Wed, 24 May 2017 16:14:16 GMT

[quote user="J G Wray"]

Perhaps the pragmatic answer is to apply for a BitCoin account, just in case

[/quote]

We might all need it one day but the IT analysts said that is best avoided as you are likely never to get the unlock code anyway, and f course never see your money either.

What was interesting is that 98% of computers that got infected were actually running Windows 7. And Windows 10, by the way, is supposed to be immune to this particular exploit.

RE: Are vet practices vulnerable to WannaCry?

Anthony Dennison — Fri, 19 May 2017 11:45:00 GMT

Our practice got hit by some ransomware a couple of months ago, we had to the same as the NHS, just turn everything off to stop it from spreading. I don't know the full details, but a cuple of the branches didn't have computers for almost a week.

Luckily I was off the week it happened so I walked back in with it all fixed. Didn't know what the fuss was about

RE: Are vet practices vulnerable to WannaCry?

J G Wray — Thu, 18 May 2017 15:07:20 GMT

Perhaps the pragmatic answer is to apply for a BitCoin account, just in case

RE: Are vet practices vulnerable to WannaCry?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Thu, 18 May 2017 12:46:06 GMT

I don't know if Windows is different, but as far as I can see if you keep frequent clone backups you could just wipe your hard drive and restore it from the clone. You'd lose a few files but you could tell the thieving hackers to go and freak themselves. No?

I'm rather dismayed by the way the NHS apparently could not operate at all without computers. Reportedly, people had their routine operations cancelled because they might require blood transfusion and if they needed a blood transfusion stuff would have to be entered into the computer. Er, couldn't they just go back to more old-fashioned ways of recording and checking for a while? Blood transfusions got done OK before computers were invented.

RE: Are vet practices vulnerable to WannaCry?

Martin McDowell — Thu, 18 May 2017 07:44:03 GMT

I do notice a lot of systems only update after a full restart of the systems and some of those systems rarely get shut down and are just left on day after day. Restarted a PC the other day where I was locuming and there were 1000+ updates pending.

I would be skeptical to rely on our government to thwart any such attacks. I guess I would think GCHQ would have the best manpower and technical abilities to be able to trace these attacks but it was actually a 22-year old from the south of England that ended up finding a simple solution to stopping/slowing down the spread of WannaCrypt. I think normal government procedures are just to slow to be able to respond to these new upcoming cyber-security threats.

RE: Are vet practices vulnerable to WannaCry?

Stephen Courtney — Wed, 17 May 2017 20:00:03 GMT

WE have a good IT system, and are bombarded with virus attempts constantly, some of which get through, fortunately so far have not been too difficult to deal with....yet.

I see the real problem is that there is no government lead on this - if it was pirates in the Channel picking off our shipping, there would be a proper response to a national threat.

I don't think it's right to leave it all to private companies who have no authority to get anything done, and I don't understand why banks can't trace the money trail properly either, given how much ID and proof of address you need to open an account...or is that just for honest folk?

RE: Are vet practices vulnerable to WannaCry?

Roland Bulkyn-Rackowe — Wed, 17 May 2017 18:40:06 GMT

We've not had anything but it could easily happen with a similar virus. Many post XP versions of windows will have a degree of protection with the March round of Windows security updates from Microsoft. As an additional precaution I have also turned off the SMBv1 protocol which has unfortunately stopped our scanners saving to a network location. We've not had any communication from our practice mangement system suppliers yet!