"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free
You are the kind of guy who could keep XP going safely because you are
a programmer. You might consider LINUX on the old machine. My son
went that way and loves it.
Chris
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *David R. Block
*Sent:* Tuesday, April 08, 2014 10:02 PM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [RC] XP news
Yeah, I haven't decided what I'm going to do.
My anti-virus provider will keep supporting XP for about 3 years.
David
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free."*---P. J. O'Rourke*
On 4/8/2014 11:29 AM, Chris Hahn wrote:
XP users who use their computers on the Internet should switch to
a different operating system, like it or not. Otherwise they will
be sitting ducks unless they are really sharp with 3^rd party
security (unlikely with the XP crowd). If they want to keep the
same computer, LINUX is a viable option, but most XP users are not
going to have the geek-factor that it takes to use LINUX. The
best bet for most will be to buy a new computer with an up-to-date
operating system.
RIP XP (I thought it was a good OS and stayed with it throughout
the VISTA debacle.)
Chris
*From:*[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of
*[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Tuesday, April 08, 2014 10:14 AM
*To:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Cc:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* [RC] XP news
*Real Clear Politics*
Real Clear Technology
April 8, 2014
Welcome to the XPocalypse
*By**Bree Fowler*
<http://www.realcleartechnology.com/authors/bree_fowler/>
NEW YORK (AP) -- Microsoft will end support for the persistently
popular Windows XP on Tuesday, and the move could put everything
from the operations of heavy industry to the identities of
everyday people in danger.
An estimated 30 percent of computers being used by businesses and
consumers around the world are still running the 12-year-old
operating system.
"What once was considered low-hanging fruit by hackers now has a
big neon bull's eye on it," says Patrick Thomas, a security
consultant at the San Jose, Calif.-based firm Neohapsis.
Microsoft has released a handful of Windows operating systems
since 2001, but XP's popularity and the durability of the
computers it was installed on kept it around longer than expected.
Analysts say that if a PC is more than five years old, chances are
it's running XP.
While users can still run XP after Tuesday, Microsoft says it will
no longer provide security updates, issue fixes to non-security
related problems or offer online technical content updates. The
company is discontinuing XP to focus on maintaining its newer
operating systems, the core programs that run personal computers.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company says it will provide
anti-malware-related updates through July 14, 2015, but warns that
the tweaks could be of limited help on an outdated operating system.
Most industry experts say they recognize that the time for
Microsoft to end support for such a dated system has come, but the
move poses both security and operational risks for the remaining
users. In addition to home computers, XP is used to run everything
from water treatment facilities and power plants to small
businesses like doctor's offices.
Thomas says XP appealed to a wide variety of people and businesses
that saw it as a reliable workhorse and many chose to stick with
it instead of upgrading to Windows Vista, Windows 7 or 8.
Thomas notes that companies generally resist change because they
don't like risk. As a result, businesses most likely to still be
using XP include banks and financial services companies, along
with health care providers. He also pointed to schools from the
university level down, saying that they often don't have enough
money to fund equipment upgrades.
Marcin Kleczynski, CEO of Malwarebytes, says that without patches
to fix bugs in the software XP PCs will be prone to freezing up
and crashing, while the absence of updated security related
protections make the computers susceptible to hackers.
He added that future security patches released for Microsoft's
newer systems will serve as a way for hackers to reverse engineer
ways to breach now-unprotected Windows XP computers.
"It's going to be interesting to say the least," he says. "There
are plenty of black hats out there that are looking for the first
vulnerability and will be looking at Windows 7 and 8 to find those
vulnerabilities. And if you're able to find a vulnerability in XP,
it's pretty much a silver key."
Those weaknesses can affect businesses both large and small.
Mark Bernardo, general manager of automation software at General
Electric Co.'s Intelligent Platforms division, says moving to a
new operating system can be extremely complicated and expensive
for industrial companies. Bernardo, whose GE division offers
advisory services for upgrading from XP, says many of the unit's
customers fall into the fields of water and waste water, along
with oil and gas.
"Even if their sole network is completely sealed off from attack,
there are still operational issues to deal with," he says.
Meanwhile, many small businesses are put off by the hefty cost of
upgrading or just aren't focused on their IT needs. Although a
consumer can buy an entry-level PC for a few hundred dollars, a
computer powerful enough for business use may run $1,000 or more
after adding the necessary software.
Barry Maher, a salesperson trainer and motivational speaker based
in Corona, Calif., says his IT consultant warned him about the end
of XP support last year. But he was so busy with other things that
he didn't start actively looking for a new computer until a few
weeks ago.
"This probably hasn't been as high a priority as it should have
been," he says.
He got his current PC just before Microsoft released Vista in
2007. He never bought another PC because, "As long as the machine
is doing what I want it to do, and running the software I need to
run, I would never change it."
Mark McCreary, a Philadelphia-based attorney with the firm Fox
Rothschild LLP, says small businesses could be among the most
effected by the end of support, because they don't have the same
kinds of firewalls and in-house IT departments that larger
companies possess. And if they don't upgrade and something bad
happens, they could face lawsuits from customers.
But he says he doesn't expect the wide-spread malware attacks and
disasters that others are predicting - at least for a while.
"It's not that you blow it off and wait another seven years, but
it's not like everything is going to explode on April 8 either,"
he says.
McCreary points to Microsoft's plans to keep providing
malware-related updates for well over a year, adding that he
doubts hackers are actually saving up their malware attacks for
the day support ends.
But Sam Glines, CEO of Norse, a threat-detection firm with major
offices in St. Louis and Silicon Valley, disagrees. He believes
hackers have been watching potential targets for some time now.
"There's a gearing up on the part of the dark side to take
advantage of this end of support," Glines says.
He worries most about doctors like his father and others the
health care industry, who may be very smart people, but just
aren't focused on technology. He notes that health care-related
information is 10 to 20 times more valuable on the black market
than financial information, because it can be used to create
fraudulent medical claims and illegally obtain prescription drugs,
making doctor's offices tempting targets.
Meanwhile, without updates from Microsoft, regular people who
currently use XP at home need to be extra careful.
Mike Eldridge, 39, of Spring Lake, Mich., says that since his
computer is currently on its last legs, he's going to cross his
fingers and hope for the best until it finally dies.
"I am worried about security threats, but I'd rather have my
identity stolen than put up with Windows 8," he says.
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