April 8th marked the end of support for one of Microsoft's most popular and successful operating systems (OS), Windows XP. Chances are many of you are reading this post on a pc or laptop running Windows XP. Did you know that the ATM Industry Association estimated earlier this year that 95% of ATM's are running some variant of XP and they expected only a fraction of those machines would receive software updates by the time support ended?
So what does the end of support mean to you? The biggest impact XP users will see going forward is the end of updates and security patches. As mentioned, XP has been one of the most successful and widely distributed OS's in history. The software works well and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The risk lies in the fact that MS will no longer dedicate resources to finding and fixing security issues and holes that can be exploited. For the healthcare industry this poses a significant risk as we are all entrusted with PHI which must remain protected. HITECH stipulates that software systems must be supported to be compliant.
So what should you do if you are still running XP? In the short term, users need to make sure their pc is protected by running an up to date anti-virus and malware product. Periodic scans should be done on each machine to ensure there are no viruses hiding on the machines and posing a security threat. As always, users should practice safe surfing and use business machines only for their intended purpose, business. If you have not created a migration plan to replace or upgrade old machines, the time is now. Precision is ready to help with this process. We will complete a full inventory of your environment, identify all machines running XP, and put together a comprehensive migration plan. Let us guide you through the transition.
You may contact us using our main office line at 314-787-0681. Alternatively, you can also reach out to us using our contact form here.
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