The National Health Service (NHS) was left vulnerable to the WannaCry ransomware attack because, despite local health trusts being warned to patch their systems, many had failed to do so.
A National Audit Office (NAO) investigation into May’s global cyber-attack — which took down IT systems at many NHS organisations — has found that the impact of WannaCry could have been prevented if basic security best practice had been applied.
According to the NAO’s report, NHS Digital — the health service’s data and IT body — issued critical alerts throughout March and April warning organisations to patch their systems in order to prevent an event like WannaCry from happening.
