Microsoft has warned Windows XP users this week that if they are not willing to upgrade to a supported version of Windows then their systems might be open to malicious attacks from hackers.
In the Microsoft blog post published over the weekend Microsoft explains that after April 8th 2014, Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) customers will no longer receive new security updates or non-security hotfixes.
Enabling hackers to use subsequence security updates for supported Windows operating systems to be reverse engineered and then used as easy to attack older Windows XP systems.
“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,” said Tim Rains, Microsoft’s director of trustworthy computing, in a blog post.
“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.” -” after April 8, 2014, organizations that continue to run Windows XP won’t have this advantage over attackers any longer.”
For more information on the new warnings from Microsoft regards upgrading from Windows XP jump over to the Microsoft security blog website for details.
Source: The Register
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