A MONTH ago we wrote about the NHS compromising the life of English patients by choosing friends over technology. The NHS is close to Microsoft [1, 2] and grants contracts to Microsoft partners. It leads to a never-ending string of hospitals that are hit by viruses [1, 2, 3] and this latest Register report suggests that there is no ending to trouble, just like with the Windows-powered LSE platform, which crashed repeatedly and is now being dumped.
NHS hospitals struggle to hold back the malware tide
Malware infection problems at NHS hospitals are a more serious problem than isolated reports of infestation might suggest, according to an investigation by More4 News.
Last November an infection by the MyTob worm created huge administrative headaches at three London hospitals - Barts, the Royal London and the London Chest Hospital - that are part of the same NHS Trust. The infection forced the hospitals to briefly reroute ambulances and disrupted hospital administration while the infection was being contained. Some medical staff had to resort to pen and paper backup systems.
The Koobface worm, which previously infected users of Facebook and MySpace, is spreading among users of micro-blogging website Twitter.
The scale of the attack is unclear but serious enough for Twitter to issue a warning on Friday morning, via the service's status page. Koobface-related activity has been detected on Twitter before, but the latest assault has provoked a more concerted response from the micro-blogging service, including plans to temporarily suspend compromised accounts.