Posted August 21, 2013
In a blog post, a senior Microsoft executive has warned users of Windows XP to get a move on and upgrade to shinier, newer versions of Windows.
The post, by Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Director Tim Rains, points out that after the end of official support for XP, on 08 April 2014, the company will be basically forced to pass on details of likely XP vulnerabilities to potential attackers, without providing users with the means to defend themselves.
As details of these issues will be widely publicised, for very good reasons, there's bound to be plenty of research going on into which ones can be used to penetrate the systems of anyone still clinging on to XP.
The above is only an excerpt. Here is the source.The post, by Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Director Tim Rains, points out that after the end of official support for XP, on 08 April 2014, the company will be basically forced to pass on details of likely XP vulnerabilities to potential attackers, without providing users with the means to defend themselves.
One risk is that attackers will have the advantage over defenders who choose to run Windows XP because attackers will likely have more information about vulnerabilities in Windows XP than defenders.
The problem is, of course, that once patches stop being provided for newly-discovered vulnerabilities, any problems that are found for more recent versions may well be backwards-compatible with XP. As details of these issues will be widely publicised, for very good reasons, there's bound to be plenty of research going on into which ones can be used to penetrate the systems of anyone still clinging on to XP.
