Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WEB HACKERS T0 STRIKE THE UK AGAIN
Millions of computers at risk today as hospitals, firms & transport face attack
A SECOND wave of cyber attacks may hit the UK today.
Experts say infected computers will be turned on and a “worm” could spread the virus across networks. Security expert Tony Mcdowell said: “Computer hacking is the greatest threat to civilisation since the Second World War.”
CYBER attacks like the one that struck the NHS have plunged the world into a “new age of warfare”.
Hackers could shut down banks and cut off power and water supplies in the biggest threat to civilisation since the Second World War, experts claimed. The warning came as a second massive wave of attacks was expected today as staff log back on to work systems. Some machines may still not be protected from the ransomware called Wannacry that hit last Friday, the National Cyber Security Centre said. Europol chief Rob Wainwright said it was combined with a worm application allowing the “infection of one computer to quickly spread across the networks”. He added: “The global reach is unprec- edented. We are in the face of an escalating threat. I’m worried about how the numbers will grow when people turn their machines on Monday morning.” An anonymous 22-year-old British IT expert who stopped the virus over the weekend warned it was just a temporary halt and the hackers could start again “quite likely on Monday morning”. Another expert said the world faces an even bigger attack for which it is “drastically unprepared”. Cyber security expert Tony Mcdowell said: “Computer hacking is the greatest threat to civilisation since the Second World War. “In future we could face a total blackout of all systems and be at the
Once inside these computers you can steal what you want – passwords, bank details NCHO YAO HEAD OF INSECURITY DAYS ON OLD SOFTWARE RISK
mercy of whoever was behind the threat. We’re in a new age of warfare. “The NHS cyber attack was most probably caused by amateur hackers. If a sophisticated state-sponsored attack was executed our power stations, water supplies and banking systems could be completely shut down within hours.” Insurer Hiscox said less than half UK firms are prepared for cyber attacks. Cybercrime cost the global economy £350billion last year and could rise to £1.5trillion by 2019. Fraud and cyber crime cost the UK £11billion in 2015-16, said Actionfraud. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said £50million of £1.9billion set aside for UK cyber protection goes on NHS systems. He was forced to say he has “complete confidence” in the safety of nuclear systems but did not deny some computers may run on the Windows XP system exploited in the attack. Insiders say older Ministry of Defence machines could be at risk. The NCSC advised users to run Windows updates and to have an updated antivirus on machines. Microsoft issued patches for unsupported operating systems such as XP. Over 200,000 devices in at least 150 countries were shut down on Friday. NHS sources said its £5million deal with Microsoft to maintain XP security had been allowed to end in 2015. The Department of Health instead focused on cutting the number of machines still using it. But sources say some hospital trusts still use the even older Windows 7, not updated in over 10 years.