Security expert talks about Windows XP at Black Hat 2014

Aug 7, 2014 12:27 GMT  ·  By

Windows XP is no longer getting security patches and updates since April this year, but 25 percent of the desktop computers worldwide are still running it as we speak.

The security risks of getting hacked are enormous, that’s for sure, but as far as computer security expert Dan Geer is concerned, it’s all because Microsoft hasn’t adopted the right approach.

Speaking at Black Hat 2014, the Chief Security Officer of the CIA’s VC fund In-Q-Tel explained that Microsoft should make Windows XP open source and let developers improve the operating system on their own.

According to The Register, Geer pointed out that all software companies that decided to stop releasing updates for their products should make these solutions open source because the existing user base would thus become vulnerable to attacks.

Geer compared Windows XP with “a car, property, or child,” explaining that if you abandoned any of these, you lost right to it. The same should apply to software as well, he explained.

Making Windows XP open source was also one of the main requests coming from users who didn’t want to upgrade to a newer operating system, but it’s quite impossible to see this happening since Microsoft is a business that has to remain relevant by selling software.

Pushing users to newer Windows versions is a must for the Redmond-based tech giant, and allowing users to stick to an old platform would impact not only its latest products but also the PC industry, which is anyway suffering from decreased sales these days.