perpetual state offear from ‘Zero-day’ attacks
You may or may not be aware of this, but support for both Windows XP and Office 2003 ends on 8th April –that’s 26 days until all computers (and users) running Windows XP and Office 2003 will be in a perpetual state of fear from ‘Zero-day’ attacks.For those not familiar with this phrase, a Zero day attack is a virtual attack on your computer that targets flaws (or vulnerabilities) in the software that developers have either not yet had time to patch (fix) or are not aware of. What makes these attacks a thing to take into consideration if you’re still running Windows XP or Office 2003 after 8th April is that, with no new updates – more importantly Security Updates – vulnerabilities that are discovered and patched in updates for the current versions of Windows and Office can be reverse engineered and tested against the now end of life Software to see if the flaw is shared – and therefore not been patched in the update.Some estimates suggest that nearly 488 million PCs worldwide still run Windows XP and are therefore vulnerable to attack.
contact yourIT support
So in the interest of personal and professional safety we would advise that you contact your IT support to enquire about an update and make sure that all Backup systems you have in place are working – just in case.
