Others say the demise of WinXP, which has been dubbed tongue-only-slightly-in-cheek as the “XPocalypse,” does not matter that much. “The exploits, all those attack profiles, are going to be effective and work 100 percent of the time.” “The main issue with XP is that basically it’s in a forever-vulnerable state now – no patches,” Pollet adds.
Pollet estimates that about half of his clients are still running vital systems on an operating system that now has a bulls eye painted on it by cyber-spies, criminals, and warriors worldwide. Nobody knows just how widespread WinXP is through critical infrastructure industries worldwide, but there’s a lot out there. We’ve got high firewalls to protect us.’ They just don’t feel like it’s a big issue. It’s not going anywhere and we’re not upgrading it anytime soon. “They tell me: ‘Hey, this computer has been running XP for years. “Yes, this is a big deal, a serious threat, but a lot of our industrial clients have had only a very lackadaisical response,” says Jonathan Pollet, founder of Red Tiger Security, an industrial control system (ICS) security company. Even so, some of those affected by federal regulations in the electric utility and chemical industries will undoubtedly seek exemptions to the rules, some experts say. “Organizations that are governed by regulatory obligations may find they are no longer able to satisfy compliance requirements,” the alert also warns.
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As it happens, many of these industrial users rarely if ever patch their WinXP work-station computers anyway – and see no need to start.Īs a result of the halt in XP updates, “computer systems running unsupported software are exposed to an elevated risk to cyber-security dangers, such as malicious attacks or electronic data loss,” the Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control System Computer Emergency Readiness Team wrote in a March 10 alert to industrial users.įamilies are leaving public schools.
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But Microsoft’s declaration means an end to free patching for XP that will make it far easier for hackers, who will no longer need to constantly develop new malicious software to penetrate more than a quarter of all the computers on the planet.īut perhaps the sharpest challenge is faced by critical infrastructure “asset owners” who rely on XP computers to run the industrial control systems that regulate the power grid, refineries, chemical plants, and other utilities and industries vital to US economic prosperity. Many of its users will continue right on relying on XP as they have for so long. Windows XP will not just stop functioning, of course. It also means a new cyber-security challenge for millions of individuals and companies worldwide that still rely on the 12-year-old WinXP system to get work done. Microsoft’s decision long ago to declare WinXP at its “end of life” on April 8 means no more free security patches and other fixes flowing regularly out of its offices in Redmond, Wash. Tuesday is a big day for many of the computer networks that run the nation’s electric power, oil and gas, water, chemical, and other vital systems dubbed “critical infrastructure” – it’s the day Microsoft’s popular but increasingly antiquated Windows XP operating system becomes permanently vulnerable to cyber-attack, experts say.
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