Interesting how the aftermath of the WannaCry attack on the NHS has been completely ignored.

People were quick to blame governments for not upgrading Windows XP to something newer, and at the same time blaming Microsoft for not providing upgrades to an ancient operating system (even though they did provide an upgrade path to Windows 10 for free at least for personal use).

Turns out that there is no way WannaCry could spread to those NHS Windows XP machines on its own. The NSA flaw, while functional on Windows XP, was not compatible with WannaCry. WannaCry was only coded to spread automatically on Windows 7 and 8 – probably because Windows XP was judged to not be a sufficiently interesting target.

So the way this ransomware spread was by staff opening mails with the virus, and deliberately deciding that double-clicking and ignoring all warnings to the contrary on sensitive medical equipment would be a brilliant idea.

I’m inclined to think they deserved what they got.

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