On April 8 No More Upgrades For Microsoft's XP

Microsoft decision leaves hackers waiting breathlessly

Although consumers have known it’s been coming for some time, the end now is looming – on April 8 – for company support, upgrades and work on Microsoft’s XP operating system.

 

No big deal, you say, you’ve already upgraded your laptop.

 

 

But computer security professionals still are calling it an “XPocalypse” because many complex networks at laboratories are based on XP. And the vast majority of Automated Teller Machines are running XP. And point of service machines, which are the devices you use when you swipe your credit or debit card to make purchases, are XP.

And medical records on XP systems may be exposed through data breaches that could run afoul of HIPAA regulations requiring those be kept secret.

Oh, and utility operators will face new security challenges when XP support ends because XP workstations are used widely in supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and certain versions of utility software are certified to run on one, maybe two versions of an operating system, analysts say.

It’s all because Windows XP, which was introduced in 2001, is being abandoned.

The company made the same threat several years ago, but at that time customers rebelled. Several of the then “Big 8″ accounting firms, led by Arthur Andersen and Arthur Young & Company, threatened to switch to a competing system, Linux, for their business needs. These companies had tens of thousands of machines running XP and they were not about to buy a new Microsoft operating system no one liked to replace it. Linux could be purchased at a fraction of the cost, if not free.

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