Pádraig Hoare: What could the HSE have done to protect itself from the cyberattack? 

The HSE was victim of a a devastating ransomware cybercrime last week. What could it have done to protect itself from this growing worldwide threat, asks Pádraig Hoare

He is not exactly the paragon of forward thinking or planning, considering his central role in the disastrous invasion of Iraq by US and UK forces in 2003, but Donald Rumsfeld’s befuddling musings at the Pentagon have become unwittingly prescient in the years since.

“There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know,” the notorious former secretary of defense told the world in 2002.