Originally Posted by
OFSO
Nothing I have read here has convinced me that my XP will stop 'working' (suddenly or otherwise) next year with the end of MS support.
That there will be a large increase in the frequency and severity of malware attacks I do believe, but looking back at records over the past year none of the previous attacks appear to have been picked up by MS /Defender; all have been either blocked or eliminated by my two antivirus programs running full time on the PC.
If I am wrong I will say so and some posters here can then revel in having been right (and offensive too, but there we are, can't have everything I guess).
I'm not one to stand on the parapets and pour scorn, especially if it turns out great for you in the end, but let me explain the theory for you to at least grasp why we're saying what we're saying:
- Your assertion that "tomorrow is going to be fine because today is fine" is flawed because today currently has a support infrastructure in place.
- That support infrastructure consists of security professionals (and amateurs/hobbyists) evaluating XP as a going concern, probing it's systems for weaknesses, and reporting these, either the courteous way (to Microsoft themselves, who then fix the vulnerability and report it afterwards), or the discourteous way (to the press who report about it, which is then picked up by hackers and used, creating 'zero-day' exploits which Microsoft then scramble to fix, often posting expedited patch downloads)....there's also obviously the hackers/foreign governments/etc that have their own clandestine vulnerability experts, who will exploit a security hole and it's only when Microsoft get wind of it that it's patched.
- The above framework is the reason you get all those damned Windows Updates. Not because they improve a product's functionality at all or fix operational bugs - those are very much the minority reason for updates.
- The whole framework described will stop soon, with Microsoft no longer releasing updates to XP. This means that the first hacker to discover a security hole in it can then create an exploit and it'll be unpatched, meaning that *everyone* using XP is vulnerable.
Now, you can think that nobody's going to be affected by anything, you can think that McAfee/Norton/etc are going to keep on manufacturing antivirus definitions until the end of time, but I can virtually guarantee that anyone currently supporting XP in a security capacity will soon announce that 'all bets are off' when considering their provision of 'security' to a platform that no longer has it's own inherent security.
This may have no effect, conversely you might find that the vast swathes of hookey WinXP licenses in China suddenly crash their economy when Japan launches their first virus targetting XP.
Who knows?
One thing I do know is that it's not that expensive to upgrade to a system which will remain supported by Microsoft AND all the other software companies writing software.
Hence the reason we're urging you, as friendly professionals, to do the right thing. We have no vested interest here, I make no money writing this to you today, in fact I could be doing other things that do make me money.
Take from this what you will, just don't ask for help on an XP system following April as you might find the resident IT experts won't be touching it with a bargepole either.
Mike.