Microsoft Continued Anti-Malware Updates for Windows XP Users, it would be help to customers as they migrate to newer versions of the Windows operating system by extending support to the platform’s anti-malware features.
There is a sense of urgency because after April 8, Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) customers will no longer receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options or online technical content updates.
This means that any new vulnerabilities discovered in Windows XP after its “end of life” will not be addressed by new security updates from Microsoft.
When Microsoft releases a security update, security researchers and criminals will often times reverse engineer the security update in short order in an effort to identify the specific section of code that contains the vulnerability addressed by the update.
Once they identify this vulnerability, they attempt to develop code that will allow them to exploit it on systems that do not have the security update installed on them. They also try to identify whether the vulnerability exists in other products with the same or similar functionality.
In August, Microsoft issued blunt warning for computer users still using Windows XP to upgrade to a newer operating system or risk exposure to zero-day attacks forever.
Tim Rains, a director in the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing group, outlined the urgency for Windows users to upgrade to modern operating systems like Windows 7 or Windows 8.
The security mitigations built into Windows XP are no longer sufficient to blunt many of the modern day attacks we currently see,” Rains wrote at the time.
The data we have on malware infection rates for Windows operating systems indicates that the infection rate for Windows XP is significantly higher than those for modern day operating systems like Windows 7 and Windows 8.
There is a sense of urgency because after April 8, Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) customers will no longer receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options or online technical content updates.
This means that any new vulnerabilities discovered in Windows XP after its “end of life” will not be addressed by new security updates from Microsoft.
When Microsoft releases a security update, security researchers and criminals will often times reverse engineer the security update in short order in an effort to identify the specific section of code that contains the vulnerability addressed by the update.
Once they identify this vulnerability, they attempt to develop code that will allow them to exploit it on systems that do not have the security update installed on them. They also try to identify whether the vulnerability exists in other products with the same or similar functionality.
In August, Microsoft issued blunt warning for computer users still using Windows XP to upgrade to a newer operating system or risk exposure to zero-day attacks forever.
Tim Rains, a director in the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing group, outlined the urgency for Windows users to upgrade to modern operating systems like Windows 7 or Windows 8.
The security mitigations built into Windows XP are no longer sufficient to blunt many of the modern day attacks we currently see,” Rains wrote at the time.
The data we have on malware infection rates for Windows operating systems indicates that the infection rate for Windows XP is significantly higher than those for modern day operating systems like Windows 7 and Windows 8.
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