Ransomware and the NHS – the inquest begins

The ransomware attack that spread globally on 12 May seriously impacted the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), and may be due to the fact that the systems use an unsupported operating system, Windows XP. Windows XP, which has been unsupported since 2014, and for which Microsoft issued a patch after the ransomware attack, was at the centre of a 2014 warning from the UK government, advising NHS trusts to switch away from aging technology. There will be an investigation into commonalities between the NHS targets and how others remained unscathed.