back to article Great Ormond Street children's hospital still offline after WannaCrypt omnishambles

The internationally famous Great Ormond Street Hospital has been taken offline as a safety measure following last week's catastrophic WannaCrypt outbreak. The London-based children's hospital was not itself hit by the ransomware but has nonetheless quarantined its computer network. This has left staff without either email or …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Left staff without e-mail/Internet access

    Maybe someone should investigate to see if there is a corresponding surge in ACTUAL work?

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: Left staff without e-mail/Internet access

      Shut up Farage.

      1. theblackhand

        Re: Left staff without e-mail/Internet access

        Farage?

        How many companies with more than 10 or so employees have utterly pointless e-mails sent out that could be quickly resolved with a face-to-face discussion?

        How many of the same companies have someone who spends hours looking for something online that can be achieved some other way (telephoning suppliers, checking past actions, talking to colleagues etc)?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Left staff without e-mail/Internet access

      No. The amount of work done has been severely affected in places that were hit and in places that assure us were not.

      The computers are used to do things like look at xrays/scans (work), record observations (work), book visits (work), track ambulances (work) and look up the results of blood tests (work).

      Some work had to postponed but, if we find that someone has died because of this, the criminals behind this will be facing charges for that as well as the secret police and spooks from the USA (CIA, FBI etc), to Israel (Mossad?), Russia (FSB was KGB) and here (Police, Military,Jeremy Hunt).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Left staff without e-mail/Internet access

        Of course it increases the likelihood of real work being done but you must also account for the sheer imagination of the workshy; although in these circumstances they'll not to browsing the Rainforest or Junk Shop for tat instead of answering bed buzzers they'll be stood about chatting about their weekends or holidays instead.

        It's not funny when it's true....

    3. Steve the Cynic

      Re: Left staff without e-mail/Internet access

      All of you calm down. I read the AC post as a *joke* about people inside the hospital now getting on with work instead of looking at FB/Twit/etc.

    4. JSP_Pack

      Re: Left staff without e-mail/Internet access

      Actual work where exactly?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Left staff without e-mail/Internet access @Steve the Cynic

        The irony of having to explain that the Internet wastes time at work on ElReg....

        1. Steve the Cynic

          Re: Left staff without e-mail/Internet access @Steve the Cynic

          Yeah. I was in two minds about saying it, but everyone was getting *so* worked up about it. Ho hum.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They've got a Firewall.....It's okay, everybody stand-down, they got a Firewall...Hey Jimmy, they've got a Firewall over here, we're not needed...phew I thought for minute you might be in trouble, but you've got a firewall.

    1. Ben1892

      I was surprised when my wife came home and showed me a graphical report that had been issued by their IT dept - showing a peak of "hackers trying to get in" on port 445 and being swatted away by the almighty firewall.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Ben1892

        I myself have sent out similar ridiculous reports. Because someone higher up the ladder told me to do it, to "show that IT does something".

        I wasn't overly concerned about WannaCry, we've been hit by ransomware in the past (and probably will be again in the future). Once I knew how it propagated Friday and checked patch levels the worst I expected was a few users who got there local files buggered. I'm a LOT more concerned about all the other exploits that $3letteragency is storing that aren't leaked publicly.

      2. TXITMAN

        Thousands of attacks per hour no doubt. Meanwhile the fedex delivery notice with zip file attachment are pouring into email.

  3. johnfbw

    So why exactly was it taken down?

    Someone pulled the plug to stop the infection and they can't remember where it came from?

    1. VinceH

      Re: So why exactly was it taken down?

      Well, it works against hackers, even when two idiots using the same keyboard can't stop them, so it must be a good defence against this as well.

  4. Bronek Kozicki

    Kudos to them

    "Patient care continues as normal" assuming that is true (I have no reason to suspect otherwise), enhancing security as a matter of precaution is a good thing. Even if it hurts a little.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Won't someone think of the children?

    ^ this.

  6. H.A.L

    Smells like BS. Why isn't every hospital in the UK offline as a precaution, why only Great Ormond Street? I think the extent of infections and their impact is being vastly under reported and it is only after the election that we will know the full extent of the problems caused.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Given that I know who one of the people in charge of IT is I am not shocked by this one bit.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Ditto. I have many IT dealings with this hospital. They are hopeless.

  7. alain williams Silver badge

    Any idea total cost ?

    Anyone any idea of the total cost to the NHS of this debacle ? Human as well as financial.

    Any idea of the cost world wide ?

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: Any idea total cost ?

      The debacle has not finished yet and the debacle will repeat.

      The only way of fixing it is planning obsolescence with every procurement with a fixed date.

      Neither NHS, nor any other govt dept is doing that.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    N3 disconnected

    The health service organisation that I work for is disconnected from N3, as I presume GOSH is too, from this article, and I've been told that it likely to remain disconnected until the end of this week at least. It removes one almighty infection route. Internal and external email is OK, as are the internal VoIP phones.

  9. Mr Dogshit

    Note the flag at half mast in the picture...

    Oh, and it wasn't a virus, darling, it was a worm.

  10. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    IIRC Hospitals have a "Major Incident Plan" for when the s**t hits the fan in the local area.

    Y'know, massive factory explosion (not necessarily a chemical works. Dust can make a very big bang as well), region wide flash flood, 20 car pileup, zombie apocalypse etc.

    It's quite generic but it tells staff where they should be, what they should be doing and what equipment they should have or be collecting, IOW it stops the thinking and negotiating that would otherwise have to happen in real time during the event.

    Looks like IT (and they should talk to the rest of the hospital) should have one as well for massive IT shutdown, comms failure (DSL cable gets dug up by accident, HGV plows into exchange) and radio comms to ambulances (Airwave in the UK IIRC).

    Like the MIP it all sounds a monumental PITA, a complete waste of time and deeply f**king paranoid.

    Until something happens.

    The NHS runs a load of stuff on a 17YO and stopped its support contract with MS 2 years ago. It shows no sign of doing the obvious thing and migrating off this OS.

    Does anyone think this is never going to happen again?

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Facepalm

      "The NHS runs a load of stuff on a 17YO"

      Ooops.

      I meant of course a 17YO OS.

      Running the whole NHS on a PFY is too much of a punishment even for me.

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