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Windows XP Can Be Dangerous To Your Company’s Health

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Does your business still have PCs running Windows XP? If so, you’re leaving your business network wide open to security issues. Microsoft announced over two years ago that they will be ending support for their popular Windows XP Operating System and Office 2003 on April 8, 2014. This means that these systems will be completely open to hacker attacks after support ends.

Remember those annoying Microsoft updates? Well, those updates are very important because that is how Microsoft plugs up security holes it discovers. When Microsoft gets wind of a security breach, they issue an update to close that vulnerability making it more difficult for hackers to continue exploiting their software. That’s why you sometimes find that your computers were rebooted during the evening when you arrive to work in the morning. Normally, a system reboot is necessary to activate the updates that were made.

Well, Windows XP will no longer be receiving those “annoying” updates. So even though your PC may have up-to-date anti-virus and anti-malware programs and your network is protected by a firewall, you can still be successfully hacked because your Operating System is out of date and no longer supported.

Any Windows XP computers on your network will be more vulnerable to hacker and cyber attack after April 8, 2014 and pose as a gateway to your entire network.

If your business is still running Windows XP-based workstations, you need to seriously consider upgrading to Windows 7 or Windows 8. Here’s the kicker… in most cases Windows XP computers don’t have sufficient resources to run the newer Operating Systems and software, so it’s best to just replace it with newer hardware.

Additionally, many vendors will no longer support products that run on Windows XP. This can pose big problems if your company is using business-critical third party software on Windows XP-based computers.

Every business owner and executive needs to take this very seriously. Ignoring this issue can leave your business open to cyber-attack.