NHS hospitals and many other businesses were breached by the recent global-level cyber attack but Cohort Software hosted customers remain secure from the threat
NHS hospital computers and GPs surgeries in the UK were among tens of thousands hit in almost 100 countries by malware that appeared to be using technology stolen from the National Security Agency in the US (The Guardian reported).
Ransom software blocks access to any files on a PC until a ransom is paid. The attack left thousands of computers holding sensitive data vulnerable. Microsoft released a patch (a software update which denies the spreading of the malware) in March 2017, which Medgate UK used to patch all of our hosted servers, internal servers and internal staff PCs within two weeks of the release. This course of action means all hosted customers were protected against the attack.
Cohort Software Product and Operations Manager, Richard Hanson said;
“This shows our ongoing commitment as an organisation to prove our security approach, through accreditations such as ISO27001 and PSN compliance, is not just a vanity project, but does deliver the benefits to end users when incidents like this occur”.
Jon Adey, Cohort Software IT & Infrastructure Manager added;
“Whilst we avoided this outbreak it goes to show that in the wider IT landscape the simplest best practices can be overlooked for many reasons, especially at scale. We follow the idiom that security needs to be inherent at the foundation of any solution we deliver”.
Medgate UK treat data security with the utmost importance. Both Medgate UK and Blue Chip (the Cohort Hosted Data Centre) are ISO27001 certified. This means we treat data security as a core business priority and maintain the securest environment available; we can also offer reassurance about cyber risk management. The work of our support and infrastructure teams is dedicated to offering the highest possible data protection and security at all times.
