Goodbye! Windows XP
Starting Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP, as announced in recent months. In recent weeks it has spread terror on-line for this thing, not only because the computer with XP will become insecure, but because the cash machine may become easy prey for hackers.
The essential security updates for Windows XP will continue until July 2015, but the question arises: can be trusted to continue to use XP after April 8? Every time you use an operating system is no longer supported can run into problems. I do not think that when the calendar marks the date of April 9, all of a sudden we will see a series of attacks on Microsoft XP. Over time it will become riskier to use it.
In particular, our interest focuses on those structures such as ATM or POS, in short, those tools that we use with our credit cards, ATM, etc.. There are already those who are advised not to withdraw after April 8: It is a panic justified? No, it does not make sense not to withdraw money after April 8. The individual banks and owners of ATM and POS systems have already begun upgrades. What we have observed studying violations of POS is that it is not caused by the vulnerability of operating systems, but it is more a question of configuration problems. Credentials that are too easy are forced by hackers. They might also have Windows 7 or 8 as the operating system, but if the login credentials are easy to guess, it would have the same problem.
According to the director of the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing is a 100% chance that hackers are able to identify the weaknesses of Windows starting from XP update’s Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 and applying a reverse engineering process. A recent survey shows that 95 percent of the computers used by the banks for services such as ATMs are still using XP: you have to expect a hacker attack en masse to these systems? I agree that there is almost 100% chance that hackers can use updates of the latest Windows operating systems to identify vulnerabilities in the previous system. We observed the same thing when Windows 2000/XP have taken the place of Windows NT. I am equally certain that hackers will target ATMs with Windows XP, but as I said before, there are paths much easier to violate POS and ATM.
More generally, what kind of impact will bid farewell to XP from the point of view of safety of the banking systems? Will be exposed to violations easier or different? I do not think there will be big differences. It will be a gradual process over time in which to use XP will become riskier. Since most of the patch using a process of a reverse engineer to identify vulnerabilities have already been corrected, the surface for a potential attack on XP will be greater. I hope that the banks and providers of POS and ATM have already put in place plans for migration to new operating systems.
