Hakuna Matata

Hakuna Matata

The past week for the tech world was about the wannacry ransomware. For most of us it was unfathomable just how a ransomware attack could bring down an entire hospital, and to help you understand I will touch on that and one other thing that’s been bugging me, pun intended.

The wannacry or ransomware as we will call it, was designed for all Windows operating systems that are no longer supported by Microsoft, and it has NOT gone away regardless if what the media tells you, the first wave was stopped by a lucky tech guru, he found some code was typed in a way that allowed him to stop the spread, and when the creator of wannacry found out from the media, he fixed that and re-sent it. Wannacry is still in the wild, just waitng to be found. The Operating Systems include:

• Windows XP, Home & Enterprise
• Windows Vista
• Windows 8

Oddly enough, these older systems are still being used today, and most hospitals still use XP, because of system restraints, like X-Ray machines and employee records keeping, and not having the time or resources to train employees to migrate to a current O.S., if this is hard to grasp, think of having to teach everyone in your home how to drive a tank, now everyone on the hospital staff, now the entire state. This is why those systems are not upgraded, and are still being used today, even the doctor’s offices are running Wyse 8.0, a stripped down version of Windows 8, it is a thin client, meaning, it holds no data within the device itself, but on a server. That is why the hospitals got hit. I have clients the still use XP because of the machines they run, need XP to function, they aren’t designed to run new software.

So all of these units are prime targets, and if they haven’t been hit yet, it is still very possible, more so for you than me, I use Windows 7, 8.1, 10 with a valid and up-to-date antivirus, I back up my data weekly, and get all windows updates, it is time consuming yes, but having my system held for ransom, I’ll forgo the labor.

Now for the second item, a Mac I said I would never own. To clarify my words, and to keep from eating them, I do own a Mac, to wit; the newest is a MacBook Pro, but its age is the defining point-2013, not a new Mac by any means. The new Mac’s are design to fail, and they are banking on that, with the way they are being assembled. Having everything soldered to the board, does not allow for failure, and to be honest, tech in its whole, will eventually fail. Ram will fail, Hard Drives just fail, CPU’s will fail, and even Motherboards blow chips and die, planned obsolescence is not something I would pay $1400.00 for, would you? This subject gets me to a full lather in a minute, so I will end it now.

I am in the business of revival, I try my hardest to keep from filling the landfill with your tech, old or new, I encourage you to buy PC’s, New or Used that CAN be upgraded, repaired, or otherwise kept going. We live in a disposable age; everything is tossed in the trash all too easily. Preventive maintenance is not in the design anymore.