Up to individual orgs to deal with security, sniffs HSCIC
By Kelly Fiveash, 26th February 2014 It seems that organisations using the nhs.uk domain need a generous gulp of medicine and plenty of bed rest after an investigation of the health service's online estate uncovered what appeared to be a worrying hacking epidemic.The Register was alerted by reader David to the fact that a number of NHS websites - including some local trusts, medical libraries and a cancer information service - had been hacked into with dodgy links to adverts for horn-begotten drug Viagra.
He first spotted the security, er, cockup on Blighty's publicly-funded National Prescribing Centre's website, which was archived in May 2012 when the NPC was rolled into the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Yet the site was still spewing out garbage ads that could contain horrible malware when clicked on.
The "curious observation" as David put it, led him to investigate further.
"A quick search for 'discount viagra site:nhs.uk' brings up a couple of dozen pages with similar links," he told us. "I wonder what else they might be promoting."
Our reader dug a little deeper to see how systemic the problem was with the nhs.uk domain. Sadly for the health service, it was easy to find examples "sprinkled throughout", he said.
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Sorry...but I just could not resist...especially as it is at the NHS' expense. :p