Zero Day: The story of MS17-010

[Disembodied]

SF author Charles Stross has a blog post showing why the recent global malware attack would be too silly for fiction (while incidentally giving a decent summary of what happened):
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... etter.html

[Cody]

<chortles> I tend to disagree with Ernst Stavro's assessment though - it's all too plausible!

[Disembodied]

Here's a clipping from Private Eye, from 18 April 2014 - a mere three years ago:

[spud42]

the US Navy still has 100,000 computers running XP.
http://fortune.com/2015/06/24/navy-micr ... indows-xp/

[Disembodied]

The UK's Trident submarines run on a version of XP called - really - "Windows for Submarines":

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... er-warfare

Now, granted, they're not connected to the internet (probably: this is the UK Armed Forces we're talking about here, so there's really no level of stupidity that can be confidently ruled out) - but then again, neither were the Iranian centrifuges that were hit by the Stuxnet worm. And a recent Navy whistleblower reported that security at Faslane was lower than the average nightclub …

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... appen.html

[Cody]

Before and after:

[Disembodied]

Ha!

Here's El Reg, from 3 February this year:

Sophos update borks systems at London NHS trust

The security of NHS systems is becoming a growing cause of concern because of their continuing reliance on obsolete Windows XP systems, the rise of ransomware attacks in hospitals worldwide and other factors.

Nearly half (45 per cent) of NHS trusts scan for application vulnerabilities just once a year, with less only 8 per cent doing so on a daily basis. The figures comes from a series of Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to 36 hospital trusts by application security firm Veracode. It warns that failure to regularly check for problems leaves patient data at risk of cyberattacks through legacy websites and third-party plugins.

[Disembodied]

A little bit more on hacking and Trident:

The UK’s Trident submarine fleet is vulnerable to a “catastrophic” cyber-attack that could render Britain’s nuclear weapons useless, according to a report by a London-based thinktank.

[…]

“To imagine that critical digital systems at the heart of nuclear weapon systems are somehow immune or can be confidently protected by dedicated teams of network managers is to be irresponsibly complacent.”

You can download the full report here:
http://www.basicint.org/publications/st ... ing-threat

[Cody]

I note that El Reg ain't too impressed by that report.

[Disembodied]

Fair enough … although I'd sleep a lot more safely if the things weren't parked 25 miles upwind of me.

The only unhackable computer is one that's running a secure operating system, welded inside a steel safe, buried under a ton of concrete at the bottom of a coal mine guarded by the SAS and a couple of armoured divisions, and switched off.

[Cody]

... although I'd sleep a lot more safely if the things weren't parked 25 miles upwind of me.

You'll be alright - once climate change really starts to bite, the prevailing winds will probably change direction.


Question: are wind turbines directional?

[Disembodied]

You'll be alright - once climate change really starts to bite, the prevailing winds will probably change direction.

When climate change gets to that stage, the North Atlantic Conveyor will probably shut down and we'll end up with a climate like Labrador's … we might need the radioactive warmth then!

Question: are wind turbines directional?

From Wikipedia:

Modern large wind turbines are typically actively controlled to face the wind direction measured by a wind vane situated on the back of the nacelle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turb ... ign#Yawing

[Cody]

A climate like Labrador, indeed. I remember the winter of '63 - we'd get that, or worse, every year!

[Smivs]

A climate like Labrador, indeed. I remember the winter of '63 - we'd get that, or worse, every year!

Well the kids will be happy - they love snow (and dogs ).

[Alex]

Unknown little bitty about XP.
A lot of bank ATM's use it. And still do.

I still find it a very reliable OS. Just don't let MS updates near it. But then I don't use it for anything secured. Got a pencil and paper for that. You can eat that with 100% assurance, it is deleted.