The UK’s NHS is set to upgrade to Windows 10 to protect against WannaCry like attacks

Last year the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) was hit hard by WannaCry, ransomware which was designed to exploit vulnerabilities in older operating systems, causing over 6,900 appointments to be cancelled across England. 

To protect itself from future issues like this, the NHS has announced plans to adopt Microsoft’s latest and most secure Windows 10 platform, with features like SmartScreen and Windows Defender acting as drivers behind the move. This move is part of NHS Digital’s plans to modernise the service’s IT infrastructure and add extra layers of protection to the service. 

A report from the National Audit Office called the WannaCry attack “unsophisticated” and preventable if the service followed basic IT security practices. The government was warned as early as 2014 about issues that could arise if they continued using legacy operating systems like Windows XP, though these warnings seemingly fell on deaf ears.  

So far, the government are said to have spent £60 million on the institutions that were affected by WannaCry, updating their systems to prevent similar issues from happening again. An additional £150 million is set to be spent on cybersecurity efforts over the next three years, as fears of future attacks grow.