<story><title>Lessons from last week’s cyberattack</title><url>https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2017/05/14/need-urgent-collective-action-keep-people-safe-online-lessons-last-weeks-cyberattack/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thomastjeffery</author><text>This is why free software is necessary.&lt;p&gt;Proprietary software makes you rely on a company to fix &lt;i&gt;everything&lt;/i&gt;. It&amp;#x27;s like driving a car without being able to replace a flat tire.</text></item><item><author>dasil003</author><text>Uh, except Microsoft had already patched the vulnerability, just not for XP that was still being run.  Of course you can punish them and force them to support all legacy OSes forever, until that strangles the life out of them at which point large institutions &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; have to run the old OS because they have too much investment in computer controlled hardware with no forward migration.  Now they are locked into an insecure technology stack with no vendor to take responsibility and no source code to even take on the problem themselves.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s plenty of blame to go around to be sure, but giving the NSA a pass for developing zero days is batshit insane.  These guys are playing god instead of helping make infrastructure more secure overall, and it will not end well, even if they outcompete the Chinese or whatever other bogeyman they cook up to justify their power grab.</text></item><item><author>Kholo</author><text>Complete BS. This is what happens when you have top class PR at your disposal to define the narrative.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is responsible for their shit software getting exploited first and foremost. Seriously fine Microsoft and by day after tomorrow that 3500 security engineer number will jump to something realistic.&lt;p&gt;Instead what will happen is more tightening of the walled garden, overcharging of support&amp;#x2F;security contracts and propping up of another billionaire or two. I can hear the whisky glasses clinking.&lt;p&gt;Corporations do not get to set the agenda and the narrative. When they are allowed to, the results are very predictable - in this case Microsoft will make more than they loose. Who here disagrees that is going to happen? And who here believes that is right?&lt;p&gt;The answer is simple whether its Microsoft today or Facebook and Google tomorrow win-win should not be an option when such things happen.</text></item><item><author>loteck</author><text>The quote bombshell here, and what hasnt yet gotten much attention since sysadmins the world over are busy dealing with fallout, is that the NSA and therefore the US government is directly responsible for the current global cyber-carnage. We developed the capability, we chose to keep it unpatched, we tried to keep it secret, we lost control of it.&lt;p&gt;This has similarities in type, if not in horror, to the development and subsequent spread of nuclear weapons. When we lost control of those secrets, it was a BFD [0].&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Atomic_spies&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Atomic_spies&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DominikD</author><text>It wasn&amp;#x27;t about fixing, it was about upgrading&amp;#x2F;updating. It takes people and money to upgrade large infrastructures - closed source or open source, doesn&amp;#x27;t matter. Thinking that irresponsible (or budged-constrained) organizations will somehow have a completely different mindset and or set of priorities when they switch from Windows to open source software is naive.</text></comment>
<story><title>Lessons from last week’s cyberattack</title><url>https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2017/05/14/need-urgent-collective-action-keep-people-safe-online-lessons-last-weeks-cyberattack/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thomastjeffery</author><text>This is why free software is necessary.&lt;p&gt;Proprietary software makes you rely on a company to fix &lt;i&gt;everything&lt;/i&gt;. It&amp;#x27;s like driving a car without being able to replace a flat tire.</text></item><item><author>dasil003</author><text>Uh, except Microsoft had already patched the vulnerability, just not for XP that was still being run.  Of course you can punish them and force them to support all legacy OSes forever, until that strangles the life out of them at which point large institutions &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; have to run the old OS because they have too much investment in computer controlled hardware with no forward migration.  Now they are locked into an insecure technology stack with no vendor to take responsibility and no source code to even take on the problem themselves.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s plenty of blame to go around to be sure, but giving the NSA a pass for developing zero days is batshit insane.  These guys are playing god instead of helping make infrastructure more secure overall, and it will not end well, even if they outcompete the Chinese or whatever other bogeyman they cook up to justify their power grab.</text></item><item><author>Kholo</author><text>Complete BS. This is what happens when you have top class PR at your disposal to define the narrative.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is responsible for their shit software getting exploited first and foremost. Seriously fine Microsoft and by day after tomorrow that 3500 security engineer number will jump to something realistic.&lt;p&gt;Instead what will happen is more tightening of the walled garden, overcharging of support&amp;#x2F;security contracts and propping up of another billionaire or two. I can hear the whisky glasses clinking.&lt;p&gt;Corporations do not get to set the agenda and the narrative. When they are allowed to, the results are very predictable - in this case Microsoft will make more than they loose. Who here disagrees that is going to happen? And who here believes that is right?&lt;p&gt;The answer is simple whether its Microsoft today or Facebook and Google tomorrow win-win should not be an option when such things happen.</text></item><item><author>loteck</author><text>The quote bombshell here, and what hasnt yet gotten much attention since sysadmins the world over are busy dealing with fallout, is that the NSA and therefore the US government is directly responsible for the current global cyber-carnage. We developed the capability, we chose to keep it unpatched, we tried to keep it secret, we lost control of it.&lt;p&gt;This has similarities in type, if not in horror, to the development and subsequent spread of nuclear weapons. When we lost control of those secrets, it was a BFD [0].&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Atomic_spies&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Atomic_spies&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>whazor</author><text>Assuming these hospitals keep updating and do not get stuck at Ubuntu 10.04.</text></comment>