Is anyone crying yet?

[LondonDragon]

Have you been infected with the ramsonware that is going around? Wannacry/Wannacrypto?

To ensure you don't get infected, make sure your windows device is up-to-date with all its patches, very crucial, affects all versions of Windows.

Also install an AV package, I recommend 360 Total Security which is Free, https://www.360totalsecurity.com/en/

If you run a business or you are an IT guy, you might want to check if you have any vulnereable machines on your network, use this this guide:

https://blog.michaelfmcnamara.com/2...vulnerable-to-wannacrypt-wannacry-ransomware/

Good luck

 

[Tim Harrison]

I've got a Mac

P.S. They're not affected as well are they?

 

[zozo]

I've got a Mac

These days are long passed.. You're only a bit lucky that Windows is market leader, aint much of a ransom to get from the much smaller mac community.
That was the main reason why Aplle always thought it couldn't be breached or wasn't vurnerable to viruses. But it was more like the hackers didn't have the intrest to put much energy in it.. But already some years ago saw a video of a Las Vegas, Black hat / White hat convention where two 13 year old wizz kids publicly on stage hacked a Mac in 10 seconds installing several backdoors.

Bottom line never trust any network device regardless the OS, they all are potential leaking sieves. Always store sensitive valuable data on a external USB drive and not on the network or computers hard drive.. Only plug it in when you need to.

AV programs are like the Police, always running after the facts.. First came the crime or virus or back door program, after that the law and need for a program against it. So they are in fact always a step behind, you firstly need to discover the leak before you can patch it.

Thus even with an AV program you may consider yourself the lucky one if not beeing the first infected victim to discover there is some new nasty roaming the net the AV can't yet catch.

But still it realy aint something to worry much about.. I haven't had a vuris nor any spam in over 10 years. You just need to learn what sites to stay away from and what not to do to prevent it.

Few simple things what not to do.
Free Porn Aimed towards the instinctively driven dirty old man clicking everything that moves.
Free Games Aimed towards instinctively driven children impatiently clicking 10 times because it doesn't run fast enough.
Free E-cards e.g. Valentines day.. Honey I love you and they will you, thanks for the e-mail adresses. If not installing a back door..
Opening attachments from unknown sources.

Take several e-mail addresses, 1 for personal use e.g. bussines family, freinds. 1 for forums and other internet fun stuff. I use the e-mail adress i got from my provider exclusively for personal contacts. Free Gmail account for forums and Free Microsoft live account for websites i yet do not trust asking for an adress. The only account i recieve spam is the M$ live account and i do not care there aint nothing important on it anyway.

I worked in the IT for several years and privatly fixing a lot of infected computers for friends and family.. I know where to look to see where they got it from. Sneaking through the history and temporary internet files.. In most cases it were the kids surfing free games like crazy and in more cases than i thought it was dady himself hunting hooters in spare time..

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

I've been running ubuntu Linux for work for the last 10 years so I should be fairly safe. Not saying it's any safer or that there's safety through obscurity because Linux is now making up quite a large proportion of pc's these days.
I mostly download all my software directly from the Ubuntu safe servers and rarely install ppa's unless I fancy trying a new update before it makes its way into the Ubuntu repository. I also don't have java or flash installed which are two of the worst offenders.
I also use a BlackBerry phone because of its monthly security updates and inability to be rooted or hacked. Obviously it's running Android so Google is already collecting your data but hey sometimes you need to take the tin foil hat off now and again.
I often wonder why hospitals and schools haven't moved over to Linux which is more stable, consumes less resources and is totally free saving on ms licence fees. I often see stuff on TV which is current in places like nasa and in the background there a pc with xp clearly running on it!
What did they expect was going to happen, in the UK right now there's no money for actual medical procedures never mind upgrading i.t infrastructure, what did they think was going to happen using an os that's been end of life with no security updates for three years. Save a penny spend a pound seems to be the philosophy.
I have one w10 tablet / laptop combo which I don't even have AV running on, I guess I've been lucky but thanks for the heads up on the AV software LD I think I'll install it tonight to be belt and braces.
All zozo's tips are good practice and ones I adhere to.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk

 

[Zeus.]

Windows 10 and using Windows defender (free with OS) on all PCs and no issues

 

[ian_m]

Ta, thanks for the link.

All fine here a mixture of Win7 and Win 10 machines and servers.

All our XP machines and a Windows 98 machine and a server 2003 machine are on a non internet connected network segment and all but one have been patched (obviously not 98).

Interestingly the embedded versions of XP and Windows 7 appear to be immune out of the box (actually straight out of the development system), probably as they are still on full MS support.

I often wonder why hospitals and schools haven't moved over to Linux which is more stable, consumes less resources and is totally free saving on ms licence fees

Because it will cost way way more money that the NHS hasn't got. You forget that the licence is only a small amount of the cost of a PC, user training and IT maintenance cost far exceeds any cheapness of OS. Most people are familiar with Windows so a huge amount is saved on training straight away.

 

[zozo]

I often wonder why hospitals and schools haven't moved over to Linux which is more stable

Funny you mention it. I worked over 6 years for a local High School and the last 2 years at their brand new Health Care auxiliary branche in coop with the local hospital. I builded the network from scratch and administered it for 16 months there after.

The way i see it, again comes Windows as market leader around the corner. The majority of end user works at home with windows.. Which actualy is an awfull operating system to keep running stable since Windows XP. And this was developed to be as customizable as possible with several shortcuts, menus etc. numerous ways to get to the same goal. It doesn't mater how ignorant you are if you can't work with Windows you must be realy retarded.
They developed it for a generation of people educated with pen and paper, not used to work with a computer. Mac for example is actualy more simplistic with less paths to follow, thus more stable, but actualy to simplistic, it kinda says you do it my way or the highway. If you don't get it, you are stuck. For working with MAC you need a brain affiliated with how computers work. In Windows you don't need that you can just keep fiddling around and always get where you need to be in your own discovered path. So Windows kinda managed it to create customizable OS which even the most computer ignorant people still can work with.

This knowledge is what people take to work from home.. Imagine the cost and time to school employees to learn a complete new system. Especialy the generation employees which are educated with pen and paper barely managed to work with XP and already going bonkers over Windows suddenly need to learn a second OS to work with from 9 to 5. The transition from windows XP to Windows 7 already created a wave of panic and chaos among the employees.

It will take a few more genrations before all oldtimers are in pension and we only have people working which are raised with a tablet pc in the cradle. Which developed an IT brain able to work with whatever OS you feed them.

 

[swackett]

However by then the OS in the cradle people will be out of date and the way people work will have changed so much that they are now the people that are struggling to change. It will always be the case, my parents struggled with VHS recorders, I grew up with them and it was easy to work with PVR's, DVD, Blu-ray, however guess what now they are quickly becoming redundant as it now all about streaming, soon that will change and some other way will come along that has yet to be thought of. Never ending circle or fun

As far as AV goes, have read of this article about the top 10 free AV software products available right now.
http://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-antivirus

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Ta, thanks for the link.

All fine here a mixture of Win7 and Win 10 machines and servers.

All our XP machines and a Windows 98 machine and a server 2003 machine are on a non internet connected network segment and all but one have been patched (obviously not 98).

Interestingly the embedded versions of XP and Windows 7 appear to be immune out of the box (actually straight out of the development system), probably as they are still on full MS support.

Because it will cost way way more money that the NHS hasn't got. You forget that the licence is only a small amount of the cost of a PC, user training and IT maintenance cost far exceeds any cheapness of OS. Most people are familiar with Windows so a huge amount is saved on training straight away.

From what I can make out Linux costs 10% less than windows to begin with but the running costs for i.t professionals are higher because you have less choice of pros trained in Linux so they tend to charge more. Obviously if there was more Linux pros they would have to be more competitive to get the work. As for servers Linux servers in the long run are said to be cheaper so a lot of it comes down to the training costs.
I had doubts about whether or not I should start my daughter at about 6/7 yo on Ubuntu in case it confused her at school using Windows but she took to it no bother. In fact she had a bit more understanding of how a computer works by doing Linux first. As it happens the school she went to were using Mac. So if we're looking for uniform standards it sort of falls apart their. One secondary school local to me is a windows centre the other is Mac. We all know why they do that, because if they get in early enough with kids the chances are that kid will continue buying that product in adult life, that's why they give discounted pay monthly ipads out at my daughters school, it's a long term investment by ms and apple.

As it happens Linux can be skinned over to make it look like windows or Mac for the person at home if that's what they feel comfortable with, me personally, when I got to know my way round ubuntu os it felt more intuitive than the other two anyway and I don't see it being any more complicated than say getting a new phone, after a couple of weeks you pretty much know where most things are and get an few things you didn't even realise were there as you go on.

In the work place and school I would think it was the perfect os and a good standard for kids, let them pick which is they want for personal use but training them all to the same standard on the same free os would on face value appear beneficial. There must be many teachers who have never used a mac before but have to use one for work.

Coming back to the costs, I can't really see what training would be needed other than a days familiarisation. It's not like it's a million miles away really, you want your browser, email , office suite all the things work places use on a day to day basis there it is in your desktop just like any other, what's complicated about that?

You want to update, hit the update button. All software whether for os or other software all get downloaded from the same secure servers which have already been vetted so people aren't getting theirs from whatever Web site they happen to come across. If people want to install apps from any other place other than the Linux repositories they would first have to get root privileges which I'm guessing most people at work wouldn't want or try to do. It also doesn't give a normal user access to systems files easily preventing people who think they know what they are doing trying their hand and ballsing things up. Perfect in the work place IMO.

Ironically if hospitals did run on Linux the chances are this whole thing wouldn't have happened because the cheap infection would have installed, add to that each long term support of Linux tends to be supported far longer than windows. Ubuntu 14.04 I use has been supported for 7years whereas we've had what, 3 versions of Windows in the last couple of years. I don't know how much the whole infection is going to cost but I reckon it will be a pretty penny. So in the long term costs would have been waaayyyy cheaper on a Linux based setup I reckon.
Just my opinion, we've all got one BTW is windows defender good enough standalone or would you advise a second AV?

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk

 

[swackett]

I've always used a second AV on windows just for piece of mind (although back in the day Windows own AV was just an afterthought) , the link I posted lists free ones, so why not install one?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I've been running ubuntu Linux for work for the last 10 years so I should be fairly safe

I think open-source software is definitely the way forward.

Because it will cost way way more money that the NHS hasn't got. You forget that the licence is only a small amount of the cost of a PC, user training and IT maintenance cost far exceeds any cheapness of OS. Most people are familiar with Windows so a huge amount is saved on training straight away.

I think some of the issues are with MRI scanners etc, where the Windows XP software is embedded with the scanner.

We now try and avoid buying any analytical equipment which has an integrated computer interface or only produces non-ASCII file types, because otherwise you end up with kit that still works, but software that doesn't.

cheers Darrel

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

I've always used a second AV on windows just for piece of mind (although back in the day Windows own AV was just an afterthought) , the link I posted lists free ones, so why not install one?

Probably going to wish I never said this but most AV software is resource hungry, gives false warnings and in most cases the horse has already bolted. For my own personal laptop I just follow the tips off Zozo. Never surf porn on it, don't download any software other than in the windows app store or verified web sites and I never open any emails or attachments that look suss. The whole time I've had computer the only time I've ever had an issue was once when Tom Barr's facebook account was hacked and I opened a message that was from him so thought was safe. I probably will try one of the AV's but I'll look for the most light weight.

 

[ian_m]

Just my opinion, we've all got one BTW is windows defender good enough standalone or would you advise a second AV?

I use Windows defender on all my home PC's including my home server. Works fine and has stopped quite a few email born attachments getting in (and out) of Outlook.

At work a different matter. The IT people who manage(d) our PC's use Bitdefender but us developers (software and OS building) use ESET as we have had right fun and games with Bitdefender.

Three biggest issues I encountered with Bitdefender were:
- As a user (in managed environment) you had no control over exclusions, temporary control etc. So often our final compiled .exe file was silently being quarantined, giving the appearance the compile had failed.
- When building Windows OS images, basically a multi GB file copy exercise Bitdefender was silently dropping files, so the Windows installation would fail with "files missing".
- BitDefener was often preventing virtual machines starting as it locked the virtual disks whilst is scanned them.

No issues with ESET (and it is managed as well).

Ironically if hospitals did run on Linux the chances are this whole thing wouldn't have happened because the cheap infection would have installed, add to that each long term support of Linux tends to be supported far longer than windows.

Doubly ironically, no it wouldn't have helped. A similar type of bug is present in old Linux's (V2 & 3 ?) that had to support connections to XP and NT4 machines, and is present in early NAS boxes. Our discontinued non supported QNAP NAS box is susceptible. But in the real world commercial Linux is supported for far shorter than Windows, you are on your own. I think the bug only causes a denial of service, but I suspect could be engineered to take control.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/15/qnap_malware/

 

[zozo]

In my country Schools and Hospitals or any other public institution is highly subsidesed with tax payers money. Hence they all bare the name Subsidy milking institutions. They get a yearly budget calculated with the expenses they made the previous year. And i've seen it personaly, them creating unnecessary expenses to get at least as much as they did the year before. Money devouring subsidy machines..

Few years ago they did a national survey on the quality of regional education centres, 53 of them.. The one i worked for ended up beeing number 51.. One of the last with the worst quality.. But they still managed to have a € 17.000.000 bank account.

Funny huh? Beeing publicly funded to put the money in the education of our children and than manage to have such numbers on your bank account?
Tax payers money which is not spend on what it's meant for.. They promised improvements and used the money to build a new campus.

All shiny new and bright from the outside, but inside it's still rotten and actualy led by criminals. Still milking subsidies.

They don't care much for savings, they care more for spending.. And then it seems, at least that's what our politicians say, the Netherlands has one of the best educative institutions in the world? I realy wonder?

 

[ian_m]

You guys also forget the "big boy" software IT use to manage Windows PC's, namely SCCM (System Centre Configuration Manager). It make managing 100's if not 1000's of Windows PC's easy. Not cheap but does the job.

Need to see why a user is having issue, right click in SCCM console, Start , Remote Control and I can see their screen and actions and see what is the issue. Creepy, can be installed to silently monitor....

User complains they haven't got Office installed, select software -> Software library and right click and deploy to their machine.

Similarly, a machine hard disk dies, replace hard disk, go to Operating Systems, select from available network address and select deploy. Bang job done.

Want to apply updates, do similar to updates.

Also has clever monitoring. Someone swaps a monitor over, we know about it. Someone nicks 1/2 the RAM, we know about it. Someone install software, we know about it.

Interesting SCCM supports, iOs phones, Android and even some versions of Linux, Debian, Ubuntu and quite a few others.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

at least that's what our politicians say

Zozo, you should know by now it's not the politicians who are liars, it's the police, the teachers, the doctors, the nurses, the A&E staff, the people going to food banks, liars the lot of them. I see them on the news most nights lying through their teeth about how there's people dieing because their operation was cancelled, patients being kept on beds in corridors, lack of drugs available, no police on the street, kids being asked to bring their own toilet rolls to school because the school can't afford them yadda, yadda, yadda. The only person I trust is the Tory politician at the end on news night who says it's all poppy cock, statistics show that things have actually improved immensely since they were in power. Who would you rather trust? All these commoner liars or someone who is a multi millionaire who keeps their money off shore while claiming expenses from the tax payer for their second home which they rent out to a family member while having a second job as a director of a company which gets awarded lucrative government contracts even though they have ballsed up running these firms time and time again. C'mon man I think you are being a bit naive listening to all these liars

I use Windows defender on all my home PC's including my home server. Works fine and has stopped quite a few email born attachments getting in (and out) of Outlook.

I think defender comes built in to W10, I'll check tonight and just keep that if it is. I stand corrected on support, just been looking at Ubuntu release page, looks like most LTS are supported for about 5 years. Having said that changing to the newest version is just a simple case of downloading the update and if set up correctly with the OS split on the partition and your home folder on another you don't even have to back your stuff up just update the OS and away you go for another 5 years. I find the changes to OS are minimal though whereas in Windows it's a total revamp of everything to keep the punters happy.

I respect what you're saying mate, I just think that in the work place a computer where the only thing allowed on it has came from one place and is vetted by the OS developer themselves is a far more secure platform. Takes the idiot out the equation and anybody that works around the security feature and forces a third party application to work by gaining root privileges and installing themselves is as big a criminal as the bed wetter who made the malware code in the first place. It would take effort and know how to do that so they can't deny they didn't realise the risk.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

I like the phone call you get from windows technical who tell you that there are errors showing up on the network coming from your pc then try and get you to install remote desktop software so they can take over your pc. I get a lot at work so I tend to put the phone on speaker and get on with my job while pissing them about for as long as possible. My own personal best is 47 mins, I even managed to get them to ring me back the next day when I asked to speak to a supervisor because I didn't think they were competent to sort out my problem

 

[swackett]

Probably going to wish I never said this but most AV software is resource hungry, gives false warnings and in most cases the horse has already bolted. For my own personal laptop I just follow the tips off Zozo. Never surf porn on it, don't download any software other than in the windows app store or verified web sites and I never open any emails or attachments that look suss. The whole time I've had computer the only time I've ever had an issue was once when Tom Barr's facebook account was hacked and I opened a message that was from him so thought was safe. I probably will try one of the AV's but I'll look for the most light weight.

Never really found an issue them being resource hogs, the only one I would say was very bad was Norton, I've been using AVG for last x years and that's pretty good, but you can't only rely on them as Zoro has said.

 

[swackett]

I think defender comes built in to W10, I'll check tonight and just keep that if it is.

Have a look at this site that tests AV software https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/windows-10/ Windows Defender is okay but not the best, in fact its at the bottom of the list, I'd go with one of the better free ones such as Avast

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

System Centre Configuration Manager

Sounds like a god send for IT people Ian, all that without leaving your seat. Sorry to bang on about Ubuntu again But one of the features I enjoy which is similar to the above is other than not having to back all your stuff up before a new OS install (unless you want to and should) is when you're signed into the Ubuntu software centre all the software you use is synced across all devices. For instance if set up right regarding partitioning with os on one and your files on another, if you want a new os you just download new OS, install and update then sign in to USS and all your software is back. I can go from a blank hard drive to exactly same computer I had before in a about 1hr.

Because open source uses generic drivers I once had a pc pack up on me but I kept the hard drive for about a year. On my new PC I though it would be a good idea to use this old hard drive as a back up to keep my dropbox folder on so plugged it into the pc, forget to set it as slave and when it booted up I booted into the old computer and everything was running! Where else could you plug a hard drive into a totally different pc and it just works like before.