Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘So many still use XP... It’s like leaving your front door open’
AS the global hunt for the gang behind last week’s cyber attack continued, we visited hackers in the Ivory Coast. The African nation is a new hub for cyber crime, where the hackers claimed they could breach computers running older Windows XP software at will. And research suggests one in 10 of the UK’S 50 million PCS and laptops could still be running the 15-year-old software. Ncho Yao, boss of Insecurity Days, said this offered rich pickings for gangs that last year cost us £11billion. The “brouteurs”, local slang for cyber-criminals, can earn thousands every month in a nation where half live below the poverty line. Speaking at his office in Abidjan, he said: “It is like leaving your front door open. You would not believe how many people and companies are still using XP. Once you are inside these computers you can steal what you want – passwords, bank details, email log-in.” Nearly one in 20 NHS computers use Windows XP and last September, 21,000 police computers still used it. Mr Yao had one of his staff show us how simple it is to hack an XP system, clicking around folders on a computer that he claimed belonged to a firm in the US. Mr Yao insisted they were “ethical hackers”, adding: “We are not going to do anything wrong here. We will tell the company what we have done and offer to help them fix the problem.” But Gavin Millard, of IT security firm Tenable, said: “That’s an abuse of the term ethical hacker. What people like this are doing is a polite extortion.” He said the hack that crippled the NHS could have come from anywhere and they are worryingly easy. He said: “When you look at things like ransomware, a lot of the hacking that takes place is not that advanced.” The latest attack, using software called Wanna cry, exploits a Microsoft vulnerability identified by the US National Security Agency. Mr Millard said it would be hard to find the culprits, adding: “They can hide their footprints by littering the code with false clues.”