Re: Disable Windows 10 Updates
I think you are right Galty. If something as serious as this could have been averted with a patch, it should have been issued for old systems as well. Should Microsoft have seen this coming? Maybe yes and maybe no ..but they must have known hospitals were still running on old systems.
It's a difficult situation altogether. XP has been around for a long time and Microsoft gave good warning that it was going to become unsupported with security updates. They even extended the cut off date to give businesses and organisations more time to go to a later system. How long is the manufacturer of
any product expected to support a model that is years old?
Microsoft have broken the mould and issued a patch for XP well past its end of life date in response to the situation but in retrospect, they should have issued it at the time when it was issued for newer systems. Hindsight is a great thing though.
Unfortunately, no matter how much notice organisations are given that a system is coming to the end of life, there's no good time to upgrade. I don't know what would be involved in upgrading a computer system such as the NHS uses but maybe parts of it would need to be taken down while upgrading is done. Records would be unavailable for a while etc. This is something that would be inconvenient or even impossible at times for them and us.
I don't particularly blame Microsoft or the NHS for this situation, only the person or persons who put the ransomware out there ..and now, time and taxpayers money is going to have to be put into the prevention of further occurrences. Maybe they ought to buy some filing cabinets and folders instead.