Windows XP turns 20: Why it’s time to say goodbye

Windows XP turns 20: Why it's time to say goodbye

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Monday October 25th marks the 20th anniversary of Windows XP, the initial operating system launched past Microsoft in the 21st century. Codenamed "Neptune" during development, Windows XP was originally right deliberate for the consumer market. Still, an update to Windows 2000 for the business food market was scrapped and the two projects merged. Windows XP was launched to great acclaim and received positive reviews for its performance and stableness, a more spontaneous interface, cleared hardware support, and its expanded multimedia capabilities. Information technology was famed for its green start button and blue undertaking bar.

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Jake Moore, Cybersecurity Specialist at ESET.

Whilst Microsoft recently launched Windows 11 (codenamed "Sun Valley") to much fanfare, several crucial PCs still run connected Windows XP. In fact, information technology is thought that 0.6% of the 1.3 billion Windows PCs worldwide still depend on the old operating system. This is scorn Microsoft ending mainstream stomach for Windows XP back in 2009 followed by lengthened support in 2014. That agency 8 billion PCs roughly the globe are currently outer-of-date and unprotected to the latest breed of cyberattacks.

Legacy critical infrastructure deployments

What makes it worse is that these unprotected Windows XP PCs are often in judicial infrastructure deployments. For example, a significant number of ATMs still use versions of Windows XP. In fact, at the prison term of extended support ending in 2014 IT was estimated that more than 95% of the threesome million ATMs occupied worldwide were still running on Windows XP.

There are individual piping-profile examples of legacy systems being hacked since support terminated. In 2017, the dangers of operative unsupported out-of-particular date IT systems were illustrated when the disreputable WannaCry ransomware tore through the NHS's outdated systems in a count of hours. The highly published attack caused £92m worth of wrong and noncontinuous a third of all NHS trusts in England. Whilst Microsoft released a posthumous plot of ground to destination the vulnerability, it was too late. A twelvemonth before, the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia's Windows XP meshwork was struck down with the QBot computer virus. The virus infiltrated major hospital systems, forcing staff to resort to fax or phone to communicate. IT took the hospital over two weeks to contain the computer virus, which mutated adequate sixfold a day.

The need to patch over the cracks

The stark reality is that when information technology comes to beingness dispatch with an attempted cyberattack IT is non a question of if, but when. Four in cardinal businesses (39%) and a quarter of charities (26%) report having cyber security breaches or attacks in the last 12 months. It is particularly prevalent in medium sized businesses (65%), large businesses (64%) and high-income charities (51%). This has meant that the ask to fully patch business critical systems has ne'er been higher.

Important patches to newly found security holes continue to be discharged at unerring regularity. Microsoft releases patches connected the second Tuesday of each month, jam packed with security updates. In its most past "Patch Tues" update, the company rolled out security patches to no less than 86 loopholes it found in operating systems more than much technically innovative than XP.

While antivirus and other endpoint security measures are an important line of Defense Department, effectively applying software updates and patches removes many of the vulnerabilities that cybercriminals target today. However, in these years of remote working, applying so much updates can sometimes be tight. Luckily, help is at hand. By using a multi-platform patch direction solution, IT admins privy get complete profile terminated the patch status of their systems and allow for guidance to staff thus that they know what to piece and how.

You can't patch what isn't there

Operative patching is a critical security care for businesses of all sizes. The benefits are numerous. It provides a more secure environment for your stave and helps protect your business from potential drop security measur breaches. But more than that, it allows the business to continue to innovate, avoid unnecessary fines and promotes system uptime which leads to happy customers. The last point is peculiarly important. We all saw the furor that the new Facebook downtime caused, where businesses which use social media to connect with consumers were faced with angry customers and a probatory financial hit.

However, the struggle for businesses is that you stern't plot of ground what International Relations and Security Network't there. And in the eyes of Microsoft, Windows XP is no longer there. With every additional class after the end of extended support, the likelihood of security issues and incidents increases. Therefore, now is the time to say so lon to Windows XP and move to a supported in operation scheme. A vulnerable host could expose hundreds or thousands of passwords and be used to access and steal files from mapped drives. Unfortunately, 20 years on and businesses still manipulation Windows XP in great numbers. Until they update, the industry must remember the left hindquarters.

Jake Dudley Stuart John Moore is a cyber security specialist at ESET United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Irelan. He is also a well reputable diligence expert WHO regularly comments on a range of cyber stories in publications such as The Guardian, The BBC, The Independent and Forbes. He is usually asked to cave in his opinion, advice and analysis on stories featuring a security or technology slant.