Microsoft recently announced that Windows XP users would no longer be provided with technical assistance or security updates after April, 2014. This means users would no longer receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content update. Microsoft has advised migrating to other versions of the operating system, preferably Windows 8 or 8.1.
The latest move by Microsoft is clearly a marketing strategy to increase sales of Windows 8 and 8.1, which could not perform according to the expectations held by Microsoft. According to sources, Windows XP still holds the major part in the Windows market share, which has forced Microsoft into this decision. After this announcement, many XP users contacted the technicians at Windows XP help to know about the truth behind such a proclamation. Needless to say, the unavailability of security updates would make Windows XP an easy target for the hackers and spammers. This is because they would find it easy to exploit the vulnerabilities of Windows XP.
According to a blog post by Tim Rains, who serves as the director of trustworthy computing at Microsoft, “The very first month that Microsoft releases security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will reverse engineer those updates, find the vulnerabilities and test Windows XP to see if it shares those vulnerabilities and if it does, attackers will attempt to develop exploit code that can take advantage of those vulnerabilities on Windows XP. Since a security update will never become available for Windows XP to address these vulnerabilities, Windows XP will essentially have a ‘zero day’ vulnerability forever.”
According to the Windows XP help, malware infection rates have been higher in Windows XP compared to other operating systems, such as Windows 7 or Windows 8, during the last year. Tim Rains also stated, “The challenge here is that you’ll never know, with any confidence, if the trusted computing base of the system can actually be trusted because attackers will be armed with public knowledge of zero-day exploits in Windows XP that could enable them to compromise the system and possibly run the code of their choice.”
Hence, the latest announcement from Microsoft indicates the fact that the software giant is leaving no stone unturned to make Windows 8 and 8.1 popular with the users. Thus, Windows XP, which was one of the most preferred versions of the operating system, is all set to get extinct by next year.
The latest move by Microsoft is clearly a marketing strategy to increase sales of Windows 8 and 8.1, which could not perform according to the expectations held by Microsoft. According to sources, Windows XP still holds the major part in the Windows market share, which has forced Microsoft into this decision. After this announcement, many XP users contacted the technicians at Windows XP help to know about the truth behind such a proclamation. Needless to say, the unavailability of security updates would make Windows XP an easy target for the hackers and spammers. This is because they would find it easy to exploit the vulnerabilities of Windows XP.
According to a blog post by Tim Rains, who serves as the director of trustworthy computing at Microsoft, “The very first month that Microsoft releases security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will reverse engineer those updates, find the vulnerabilities and test Windows XP to see if it shares those vulnerabilities and if it does, attackers will attempt to develop exploit code that can take advantage of those vulnerabilities on Windows XP. Since a security update will never become available for Windows XP to address these vulnerabilities, Windows XP will essentially have a ‘zero day’ vulnerability forever.”
According to the Windows XP help, malware infection rates have been higher in Windows XP compared to other operating systems, such as Windows 7 or Windows 8, during the last year. Tim Rains also stated, “The challenge here is that you’ll never know, with any confidence, if the trusted computing base of the system can actually be trusted because attackers will be armed with public knowledge of zero-day exploits in Windows XP that could enable them to compromise the system and possibly run the code of their choice.”
Hence, the latest announcement from Microsoft indicates the fact that the software giant is leaving no stone unturned to make Windows 8 and 8.1 popular with the users. Thus, Windows XP, which was one of the most preferred versions of the operating system, is all set to get extinct by next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment