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Education Reading Vietnam War Watergate

Latest read: The Pentagon Papers secret history

The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War by Neil Sheehan and The New York Times is an amazing story. Just re-published in December 2017, Sheehan, was an established, respected reporter on Vietnam. This period was an extraordinary time of change in our country as President Nixon expanded the war in Vietnam.

The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War by Neil SheehanSheehan obtained a complete copy of the top secret Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg, a RAND consultant and contributor to the papers. The publishing of the Pentagon Papers would lead Nixon’s re-election committee, somewhat appropriately named CREEP to plan and execute the Watergate break-in. This action was a direct result of the Pentagon Papers leaking, and ultimately, Nixon’s resignation.

However the Papers, initiated by his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara date back to 1945. The initial volumes reveal the American effort to save Vietnam was effectively lost before 1960.

The most striking reports of early failure in Vietnam and Indochina occurred prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and stretched through the 1954 Geneva Conference. This put to rest an notion Vietnam was a development of the Kennedy administration.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Milwaukee Ransomware Technology

2018 Ransomware attacks on Healthcare

The impact of ransomware, botnets and crypto mining will continue to impact hospitals and clinics in 2018.

ransomware, botnets and crypto mining

More precise, targeted attacks including botnets and crypto mining are projected to overtake global attacks hospitals witnessed with WannaCry and NotPetya.

Healthcare Information Security teams must show risk tolerance and carefully monitor new trends in malware, patch management, and change management.

Ransomware via botnets and crypto mining will continue to drive agile healthcare technology solutions, This will impact business shifts in governance and policy across US healthcare facilities as new attacks continue to focus on financial based malware.

Moving into the new year global attacks may give way to targeted attacks, botnets and crypto mining that have been branded as WannaMine.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Network Ransomware Technology

Healthcare’s 2018 threat is crypto mining

Crypto mining attacks are more stealth than WannaCry.

Cybercriminals continue to drive crypto mining attacks on hospital computers. Some crypto mining attacks will require hospitals report a breach of PHI. If the crypto installed is the popular WannaMine, this is considered a reportable ransomware attack.crypto mining
Last year ransomware took the American healthcare industry by storm. Botnets and crypto mining experienced continued growth since 2016. The WannaCry attack on the British health system and NotPetya simply pushed them off the front pages. They did not disappear. Make no mistake, crypto mining is the new attack vector in 2018 after strong growth over the previous two years.

Tennessee hospital EMR server hit with crypto mining

On January 26th, 2018 Decatur County General Hospital in Parsons, Tennessee announced (PDF) that over 20,000 PHI records were compromised by crypto mining software discovered on the hospital’s main electronic medical records server.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Ransomware Technology

Ransomware Vendor Solutions

There are a number of emerging vendor solutions to address ransomware threats as 2018 begins.

ransomware, botnets and crypto miningThe continuing ransomware threats in 2018 may shift from global attacks to botnets and cryptocurrency attacks. The financial attacks like WannaCry and NotPetya will also continue when cybercriminals can exploit known vulnerabilities on a global scale. The lessons learned from 2017 have reached a critical point for healthcare to ensure hospital attacks on IT infrastructure and medical devices are now protected. Vendors are responding with innovative solutions that may stop a ransomware encryption attack. We look forward to partnering with vendors who can provide this new level of cyber defense.

Vendor White Papers:

Cisco
Ransomware Defense Validated Design Guide (PDF)
US Department of Justice
How to Protect Your Networks from Ransomware
ECRI
2018 Top 10 Tech hazards: Ransomware
ComputerWeekly
WannaCry a signal moment, says NCA
Which?
Ransomware: what it is and how to stop it
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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: Britain and the Origins of the Vietnam War

Britain and the Origins of the Vietnam War: UK Policy in Indochina, 1943-50 is a very insightful examination of the complex relationship between Churchill and President Roosevelt. This is the insight with personal communications now published, reveal how they negotiated the future of Indochina.
Britain and the origins of the Vietnam WarTo many Americans the Vietnam War was a long, slow nightmare with France. However T.O. Smith reveals letters between Churchill and FDR brings Britain into a very early negotiation supporting French recolonization of Indochina. Most strikingly is the timeframe of the letters exchanged.

Churchill and Roosevelt wrote about the future of Vietnam prior to the D-Day landings during World War II. Yes, one old white man pushing another old white man to allow France, a fading colonial empire to restart slavery across Indochina. All of this was a backdrop to their current role confronting Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in late 1943. Fascinating reading.

Clearly Britain found itself shifting from an imperial world power to a new, second class global role. England and all of the UK was weakened and bled by two world wars. Churchill could read as clearly as anyone else the coming shift in the new world that placed America atop the world.

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