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Re: [LUG] OT: Advice for Windows XP Users

 

On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 01:32:43PM +0000, Simon Avery wrote:
> What's also interesting is the increasing evidence that hackers are
> preparing for a major attack on XP machines once support finishes - and
> it's likely they have a bunch of unused exploits waiting for the day
> they're safe to deploy them knowing they'll never be patched.

I haven't seen any such evidence, other than people making informed
guesses, but I can also come of with some sensible arguments why this
won't be the case.

I know there are still many machines running XP, but what I haven't seen
much of are numbers of XP machines that aren't either running a very old
version, or are run by sysadmins that know what they're doing and have
secured the system in other ways. It's those machines for whom the
situation will become a lot worse after 8 April.

(Machines that haven't been patched in ages are a real problem, but they
won't become more vulnerable when Microsoft stops rolling out patches.)
 
> This isn't Microsoft's fault, they've already given support way beyond what
> may have been expected; although perhaps an easier upgrade path (and
> simpler licencing) would have encouraged more systems to have been
> replaced.

+1 to both.

Martijn.

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