Cyber threats to Windows XP and guidance for Small Businesses and Individual Consumers
March 25, 2014 – 6:24 PMIt’s been well publicized that on April 8th, 2014 Microsoft discontinues product support for Windows XP. Released in 2001, the support policy for the life of Windows XP soon followed in October 2002. In September 2007, we announced that support for Windows XP would be extended an additional two years to April 8 2014. We are very clear about the lifecycle of our products, deliberately communicating this information years in advance, because we know customers need time to plan for changes to their technology investments and manage upgrades to newer systems and services.
We’ve also focused on communicating regularly, such as an article posted in August of last year. That piece focused on the fact that supported versions get security updates that address any newly discovered vulnerabilities, which Windows XP won’t receive after April 8, 2014. This means that running Windows XP when the product is obsolete (after support ends), will increase the risk of technology being affected by cybercriminals attempting to do harm. This blog post continues on from that article, and also provides guidance to consider as people look ahead.
Many of the enterprise customers I’ve talked to recently have finished, or are in the process of finishing, technology projects that move their desktop computing environments from Windows XP to Windows 7 or Windows 8. However, I’ve also talked to some small businesses and individuals that don’t plan to replace their Windows XP systems even after support for these systems ends in April. In light of this, I want to share some of the specific threats to Windows XP-based systems that attackers may attempt after support ends, so that these customers can understand the risks and hopefully decide to immediately upgrade to a more secure version of Windows, or accelerate existing plans to do so.
The cyber threats discussed here are based on data and insights from recent volumes of theMicrosoft Security Intelligence Report. This report includes aggregate data on the threats that hundreds of millions of systems around the world encounter – many of which are successfully blocked by Microsoft antivirus software and the security features built into Windows, Internet Explorer, Bing, and other Microsoft products and services. This data gives us a good picture of the tactics that attackers have been using to try to compromise computer systems, including which attacks are used most often on Windows XP systems. The information then helps Microsoft and antivirus security companies develop ways to combat those attacks. From the year that Windows XP was built, cyber attacks have increased in sophistication. Systems receiving regular updates get the protections they need based on the latest cyber threats. But at some point an older model of any product will lack the capability to keep up and becomes antiquated. Obsolescence for Windows XP is just around the corner.
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