The British government has admitted publicly for the first time that it is all but certain North Korea carried out the "WannaCry" malware attack which devastated NHS IT systems in May - Independent

The British government has admitted publicly for the first time that it is all but certain North Korea carried out the "WannaCry" malware attack which devastated NHS IT systems in May.

A report released by the NAO on Friday found that hospital trusts were left vulnerable to the attack because basic recommendations on cyber-security were not followed.

Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, the security minister Ben Wallace said the government now believes a North Korean hacking group was responsible, but stopped short of suggesting the UK could carry out retaliatory attacks.

"This attack, we believe quite strongly that this came from a foreign state," Mr Wallace said. Adding that the state involved was "North Korea", he said: "We can be as sure as possible. I obviously can’t go into the detail of intelligence, but it is widely believed in the community and across a number of countries that North Korea had taken this role."

WannaCry hack report exposes basic failings in NHS cybersecurity

Asked what the UK could do in response to the attack, the minister admitted that it would be "challenging" to arrest anyone when a "hostile state" was involved.

He called on the West to instead develop a "doctrine of deterrent" similar to that used to prevent the use of nuclear weapons. "We do have a counter attack capability," he said. "But let's remember we are an open liberal democracy with a large reliance on IT systems. We will obviously have a different risk appetite. If you get into tit for tat there has to be serious consideration of the risk we would expose UK citizens to."

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Earlier an independent investigation concluded that the cyber attack which crippled parts of the NHS could have been prevented if "basic IT security" measures had been taken.

The head of the National Audit Office warned the health service and Department of Health to "get their act together" in the wake of the WannaCry crisis, or risk suffering a more sophisticated and damaging future attack.

The NAO's probe found that almost 19,500 medical appointments, including 139 potential cancer referrals, were estimated to have been cancelled, with five hospitals having to divert ambulances away after being locked out of computers on May 12.

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The malware is believed to have infected machines at 81 health trusts across England - a third of the 236 total, plus computers at almost 600 GP surgeries, the NAO found.

All were running computer systems - the majority Windows 7 - that had not been updated to secure them against such attacks.

Mr Wallace accepted that the attack could have been avoided if software had been properly updated.

"It's a salient lesson for us all that all of us, from individuals to governments to large organisations, have a role to play in maintaining the security of our networks," he said.

British systems came under attack on a weekly basis from organised criminals and "a number" of foreign countries which seek to collect intelligence or carry out a "state-sponsored criminal attack".

The UK had the ability to fight back online, he added, but "if you get into tit-for-tat there has to be serious consideration about the risk we will expose the UK systems to".

He said: "Other countries do have doctrines and military thinking along that line, but the West - the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom - are much more thoughtful about these things because, ultimately, if we were to take some action, we have to remember that some of these states may, as we have seen with this WannaCry, strike out at the rest of our functions."

The West needed to discuss a "doctrine of deterrent" in order to prevent foreign states launching attacks.

In a report cataloguing the failures which led to May's attack, the NAO said that while the health service's IT arm NHS Digital had issued "critical alerts" about WannaCry in March and April, the DoH had "no formal mechanism" to determine whether local NHS organisations had taken any action.

NAO head Sir Amyas Morse said: "There are more sophisticated cyber threats out there than WannaCry so the Department (of Health) and the NHS need to get their act together to ensure the NHS is better protected against future attacks."

More than 300,000 computers in 150 countries were infected with the WannaCry ransomware.

It crippled organisations from government agencies and global companies by targeting computers with outdated security.

Democrats Should Not Consider a Presidential Nominee Who’s Older Than Trump - Intelligencer ( New York Magazine )

Democrats Should Not Consider a Presidential Nominee Who’s Older Than Trump

By

Ed Kilgore

Sanders or Joe Biden becomes the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, their party could be courting unexpected disaster for the second election in a row. Photo: Getty Images

As a left-of-center writer still somewhat traumatized by the events of last November, I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about what might produce a second horrendous lightning strike and an eight-year Trump presidency that could reshape the United States in all sorts of regrettable ways. It’s possible that investors eager for tax cuts and deregulation could drive a short-term economic boom that’s just large enough to put Trump in a good position for 2020. The turnout patterns that in 2016 thwarted what looked like a significant and growing Democratic demographic advantage could recur. Intensified partisan polarization could reduce potential GOP defections in a way that might make it very hard for a Democratic challenger to open up a durable lead, even if Trump’s approval ratings remain poor.

But far and away the most likely path to a second Trump term is a second Democratic challenger to Trump who becomes more of a political problem than a solution. And while no one in the running for 2020 suffers from the exact vulnerabilities created by the massive, decades-long attacks on Hillary Clinton, there is one clear and present danger that needs to be confronted directly and honestly. It’s that Democrats could choose a challenger so old that the prospect of infirmity or mortality — or worse yet, actual infirmity or mortality during the general-election campaign — could give Trump just the kind of advantage he needs.

This is not, obviously, a theoretical issue. On election day in 2020, Bernie Sanders will be 79 years old, and Joe Biden will be a couple of weeks from turning 78. These happen to be the early front-runners for the Democratic nomination, according to initial polls. And that’s not just a matter of name ID: Sanders is the leader of a political movement that will be extremely active in the midterm elections, and a pol who millions of people believe would have done decisively better than Hillary Clinton had he won the 2016 nomination. Biden has been running for president or vice-president for much of the last three decades. Neither has announced a 2020 candidacy, but both have conspicuously refused to rule it out.

Biden 2020 or Sanders 2020 is a really bad idea, for reasons that go beyond the anomaly that either would make the oldest man ever elected president the youth candidate in his reelection bid. There are certainly octogenarians who are physically fit, sharp as a tack, and as competent at work as any whippersnapper. But it’s no secret that when people, particularly men, get to that age, the risk of mortality rises significantly (a 75-year-old man has a 22 percent chance of dying within six years), and along with it the possibility of cognitive deterioration (an estimated 15 percent of people between the ages of 80 and 84 suffer from some form of dementia). If voters fear any of that happening, it could (particularly with some encouragement from the kind of intensely hostile conservative media that Sanders and Biden were spared in 2016) affect their electability in ways that are not easy to anticipate in scope and power. And even more obviously, if a 77- or 79-year-old candidate suffers from any real or perceived impairment, the issue could take over the campaign to an extent that makes Hillary Clinton’s email problem look minor.

Setting some “cap” on the age of presidential candidates is inherently an arbitrary exercise. But in terms of 2020, the logical rule would be that Democrats should not consider as nominees anyone older than Trump himself, who will turn 74 during the general-election campaign. Democrats should let him be the one to parry questions and concerns about age and health.

Disqualifying Biden and particularly Sanders (or better yet, quietly encouraging them to disqualify themselves by deciding not to run) will upset a lot of loyal supporters. But it’s not like the bench will be empty of potential candidates from every conceivable background (there are certainly still plenty of available white men other than Biden and Sanders) and ideological persuasion. Indeed, taking these two out of the race would help the odds of finally electing the first woman as POTUS; Elizabeth Warren, for example, does not run afoul of the younger-than-Trump rule. And the Sanders enthusiasts most likely to be angered by efforts to talk their champion out of a 2020 run might want to give a longer look to Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, or Keith Ellison — as well as Warren.

If nothing else, this is a subject that demands discussion among political activists and the news media. Perhaps an aging country has all but abandoned the idea that you can be too old to run for president. If not, we need to know that now instead of in the heat of a campaign.

The Unusual Law Imperiling Aussie Politicians: QuickTake Q&A - Bloomberg

The Unusual Law Imperiling Aussie Politicians: QuickTake Q&A

By Jason Scott

October 27, 2017, 1:07 PM GMT+10

From

Australian lawmakers have been urgently checking their family trees, searching for evidence that they may be citizens of other nations -- and thereby disqualified from holding office. The developing crisis has so far embroiled seven members of Parliament, with one by far the most important: Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who revealed in August that his father’s New Zealand heritage made him a Kiwi, too. With the High Court set to consider Joyce’s fate today, the stakes are high. Should he lose, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government would face weeks of turmoil and the prospect of having to rule by minority.

1. Why the big deal about dual nationality?

Section 44 of Australia’s constitution says people are disqualified from becoming federal lawmakers if they are “a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power.” The constitution was written when Australia was a collection of British colonies and became law in 1900. The clause in Section 44 previously cost a female lawmaker her place in the Senate in 1999.

2. Why is this coming up again now?

Some Aussie lawmakers haven’t been doing their homework. Before becoming a candidate, they’re required to renounce citizenship of any other nation and acknowledge they’re not in breach of Section 44. Seven haven’t fulfilled those obligations -- and more may be revealed. Research by The Australian newspaper shows 49 of the 226 federal lawmakers were either born in a different country or have a parent who was, potentially making them ineligible.

3. How could you not know you’re a citizen of a country?

There are a variety of ways. The first domino to fall, New Zealand-born Senator Scott Ludlam of the minority Greens party, wrongly assumed he had lost his dual citizenship when he was naturalized as an Aussie as a teenager. His Greens colleague, Larissa Waters, knew she was born in Canada (to Australian parents) but didn’t realize that fact automatically made her a Canuck. After both resigned from the upper house in July, Turnbull, who leads the Liberal party, said they were guilty of “extraordinary negligence” and “incredible sloppiness.”

4. Does Turnbull still feel that way?

Hard to say. Things started getting messy for the prime minister when Matt Canavan, a 36-year-old rising star in the governing coalition, found out his mother had applied for Italian citizenship on his behalf, without his knowledge. He quit Turnbull’s Cabinet on July 25 but stayed in the Senate. The anti-immigration party, One Nation, then got its turn under scrutiny when its India-born senator, Malcolm Roberts, referred himself to the High Court to decide whether he’s actually a British citizen. But the spotlight returned to Turnbull when Joyce got snagged.

5. Who is Joyce?

The whip-cracking, cowboy-hat-wearing deputy prime minister has made a reputation as a blunt-talking straight-shooter, both in Australia and abroad. He leads Turnbull’s junior coalition partner, the rural-based Nationals, and is in charge of ministerial portfolios including resources and agriculture. He grabbed the international spotlight in 2015 for his feud with Johnny Depp and then-wife Amber Heard. The Hollywood star labeled the lawmaker a “sweaty, big-gutted man from Australia” after Joyce threatened to euthanize the couple’s Yorkshire Terriers when they entered the nation without quarantine procedures being completed. When Joyce’s citizenship troubles came to light, Heard tweeted that she had sent a box of New Zealand’s finest kiwifruit “to comfort Mr. Joyce in his hour (of) need.”

6. Why is Joyce’s case so important?

Because unlike the senators caught up by Section 44 questions, Joyce is a lawmaker in the lower house, where the coalition holds the governing majority by just one seat. Should he be ruled ineligible, he’ll have to contest a special "by-election" for a seat that was held by an independent for more than a decade before he won it in 2013. His participation should be allowed, given that he has now renounced his New Zealand citizenship. Were Joyce to lose, the government would be unlikely to fall; at least three independent lawmakers have said they’ll back Turnbull if the opposition seeks a vote of no confidence. Still, the government would face weeks of uncertainty that could further delay efforts to pass company tax cuts.

7. What happens next?

The High Court is scheduled to announce its decision today. Many constitutional lawyers aren’t convinced that the government’s argument -- that Joyce should be cleared because he was ignorant of his Kiwi citizenship -- will fly. Longer term, a change to the constitution would require a mandatory national referendum, an expensive process that would take years to organize and usually fails. It’s unclear when the ruling on the fate of Joyce and the six other lawmakers will come.

The Reference Shelf

That all-important Section 44.

Australia’s already in a political mess, as this Q&A explains.

ABC lists the “Citizenship Seven.”

Bloomberg Gadfly’s David Flickling argues it’s time to rethink the citizenship rules.

Why "Do you come from a land down under?" is such an important question now.

It’s a New Zealand Labour party conspiracy, says the Australian government.

JFK assassination: Thousands of files released - BBC News

JFK assassination: Thousands of files released

Media captionWhat will top-secret JFK files tell us about Kennedy's killer?

The US government has released 2,800 previously classified files on the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963.

President Donald Trump said the public deserved to be "fully informed" about the event, which has been the subject of various conspiracy theories.

But some documents have been withheld at the request of government agencies.

One memo revealed that the FBI had warned police of a death threat against the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

"We at once notified the chief of police and he assured us Oswald would be given sufficient protection", writes the FBI director J Edgar Hoover.

Oswald was shot dead in the basement of the Dallas Police department two days after President Kennedy was killed.

As the documents are pored over and analysed, other findings include a 1964 FBI memo in which Cuban exiles debate how much an assassination of Fidel Castro would be worth. "The $150,000 to assassinate Fidel Castro plus $5,000 expense money was too high," it says.

Another memo showed that Soviet officials feared an "irresponsible general" would launch a missile at the USSR in the wake of President Kennedy's death.

US President John F Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy arrive at Love Field in Dallas, Texas, less than an hour before his assassinationImage copyrightREUTERS

Image caption

The president and first lady in Dallas less than an hour before his assassination

A 1992 law passed by Congress required all records related to the assassination of President Kennedy - around five million pages - to be publicly disclosed in full within 25 years.

The deadline was Thursday.

More than 90% of the files were already in the public domain.

Allegations of a government cover-up are unlikely to be assuaged by reports that the CIA, FBI, Department of State and other agencies lobbied at the last minute to keep certain documents under wraps.

JFK assassination: Questions that won't go away

In a memo directing heads of executive departments to release the files, Mr Trump said the American public deserves to be "fully informed about all aspects of this pivotal event".

"Therefore, I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted," the president wrote.

Some redacted documents are undergoing a further six-month review, but it is possible those records could stay secret after the deadline on 26 April next year.

The president, according to White House officials, was reluctant to agree to agency requests to hold the remaining documents.

"I have no choice - today - but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our Nation's security," Mr Trump added in his memo.

The records are being released on the National Archives website.

What happened?

President Kennedy was shot dead on 22 November 1963 as he travelled through Dallas in an open-topped limousine.

Texas Governor John Connally, who was sitting in front of the president, was wounded. Police officer JD Tippit was killed shortly afterwards.

Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and charged with killing Kennedy and Tippit, but he denied this, saying he was "just a patsy".

On 24 November, Oswald was shot dead in the basement of the Dallas police department by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner.

Vice-President Lyndon Baines Johnson (C) is sworn in as JFK's stunned widow stands by just two hours after he was shot

What was the official explanation?

The Warren Commission's report, published in September 1964, said that Lee Harvey Oswald had fired the fatal shots from the Texas School Book Depository building.

There was "no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign", the commission said.

A 1979 investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations said there was a "high probability" that there had been two gunmen.

The life and death of JFK (R) continues to fascinate Americans more than half a century later

Who was Lee Harvey Oswald?

A former Marine and self-proclaimed Marxist, he travelled to the Soviet Union in 1959 and lived there until 1962.

He worked in Minsk in a radio and TV factory and met his wife in the city.

The Warren Commission found that he visited the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico City two months before Kennedy was shot.

What other theories are there?

Some people suggest there may have been a second shooter, while others say it is more likely the fatal shot came from in front of Kennedy and not behind.

A paraffin test on Oswald's cheek after he was arrested suggested he hadn't fired a rifle, although the test's reliability has been questioned.

Mr Connally has said he was not hit by the same bullet as Kennedy, contradicting the Warren Commission's findings.

North Korean official: Take hydrogen bomb threat 'literally' - CNN News

North Korean official: Take hydrogen bomb threat 'literally'

By Will Ripley, CNN

Updated October 26, 2017

North Korea: Take hydrogen bomb threat 'literally'

North Korea: Take hydrogen bomb threat 'literally' 04:17

Pyongyang (CNN)A senior North Korean official has issued a stern warning to the world that it should take "literally" his country's threat to test a nuclear weapon above ground.

The official, Ri Yong Pil, told CNN in an exclusive conversation in Pyongyang that the threat made by North Korea's foreign minister last month should not be dismissed. North Korea "has always brought its words into action," Ri said, visibly angry.

North Korea's missile tests

North Korea's missile tests

Speaking on a visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly last month, Ri Yong Ho, the foreign minister, raised the possibility that North Korea could test a powerful hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. The threat came hours after US President Donald Trump threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea in a speech to the UN.

"The foreign minister is very well aware of the intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his words literally," Ri told CNN in Pyongyang.

North Korea carried out the strongest of its six-ever nuclear tests in early September, claiming to have used a hydrogen bomb.

The UN responded to the test by imposing fresh sanctions on the rogue state.

North Korea's continued threats have put its neighbors in the Pacific on high alert. In September, Pyongyang flew a ballistic missile over Japan. When North Korea it carried out its sixth nuclear test, it claimed to have detonated a hydrogen bomb that could fit atop a ballistic missile.

And during the back-and-forth barbs with Washington, Pyongyang at one point said it would fire missiles into the waters off the US Pacific territory of Guam.

Ri also implied that diplomatic channels between the US and North Korea were nonexistent, despite US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reiterating over months that they are still open.

Why Trump's Korean war talk should be taken seriously

Why Trump's Korean war talk should be taken seriously

"The US is talking about a military option and even practicing military moves. They're pressuring us on all fronts with sanctions. If you think this will lead to diplomacy, you're deeply mistaken," Ri said.

Ri's remarks come after Trump on Sunday boasted that the US was "prepared for anything" when it came to the North Korea nuclear crisis.

"We'll see what happens. ... We are so prepared, like you wouldn't believe," he said in an interview with Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo.

"You would be shocked to see how totally prepared we are if we need to be," he added.

"Would it be nice not to do that? The answer is yes. Will that happen? Who knows, who knows, Maria."

President Trump will be in South Korea during his trip to Asia next month but will most likely forgo a visit to the heavily fortified border with between North Korea, a senior White House official told CNN.

CNN's Angela Dewan wrote from London. Tim Schwarz contributed to this report.