The Chinese government is attempting to patch potential security flaws in the Windows XP operating system after it reached its end of life on 8th April 2014.
As the end of life has been reached for this operating system which is 13 years old, no new security updates are released by Microsoft which leaves those that are still using the operating system vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
Senior official Yan Xiaohong stated, “Security problems could arise because of a lack of technical support after Microsoft stopped providing services, making computers with XP vulnerable to hackers.”
The reason why the Chinese government is attempting to create its own patches is because they deem the price to upgrade the machines using the XP operating system to Windows 8 as being too expensive.
At the moment, Windows 8 costs 888 yuan (£84) in China. The Chinese government is keen to avoid the increased procurement costs and therefore want to continue to use Windows XP.
Chinese security providers have already released patches for the XP operating system which are currently being appraised by the Chinese government.
Yan Xiaohong stated, “The government is conducting appraisal of related security products and will promote use of such products to safeguard users’ information security”
At the moment, it is reported that nearly 70% of all computers in China use the Windows XP operating system whilst this figure is as little as 18% in the US.
This means that there are a huge number of computers that are still running on XP and leaves the users more vulnerable to cyber-attacks which could have unprecedented results.
Regardless of what operating system you use, it is vital that data is protected by utilising a robust backup solution. By having the latest security updates downloaded and applied to your machine does reduce the likelihood of becoming a victim of a cyber-attack but doesn’t rule it out completely. Therefore, by having a robust backup solution in place, you can be sure that you can recover your data in the desired state, no matter what happens.
Have you upgraded from Windows XP? Do you think Microsoft should have continued to support Windows XP?
