14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP support is coming to an end in April this year, so Microsoft is urging all users to make the move to a newer platform at soon as possible. Otherwise, the company warns, you could get hacked very fast if an attacker discovers an unpatched flaw on your system.
Some people around the world, on the other hand, claim to have found the right way to continue using Windows XP and remain protected all the time: cut off Internet access.
Such a solution pretty much makes sense: without an active Internet connection, it would be practically impossible for an attacker to connect to your computer and hack the system.
But a security expert warns that, even if you plan to do that, you might still get hacked because remote attacks are not the only ways to break into a computer and compromise the locally stored data.
Coalfire Systems' IT infrastructure security consultant Andrew Barratt told Computing in an interview that a hacker can steal data from a vulnerable Windows XP system even if no Internet access is available, which pretty much makes any computer still running the old OS version easy to exploit after April.
"The ‘It doesn't face the internet' argument is a flawed one for businesses concerned about criminal activity. If there is a way out, there can be a way in,” he said.
And the best way to get into a Windows XP system without Internet access comes down to a USB removable drive that contains malicious files that could steal specific data from the target computer, he explained.
“Other types of attack are also attacking the OS; USB ATM attacks are now starting to be circulated as viable, Stuxnet was deployed via USB albeit with significant insider effort,” he continued.
Windows XP currently has a market share of 29 percent on the desktop and, according to many users, the drop should only be insignificant in the next few months, pretty much because the existing Windows 8 and 8.1 OS versions also require newer hardware.
The overall costs of the transition to Windows 8.1 have always been one of the main issues for those still on Windows XP because hardware upgrades are absolutely mandatory, but Microsoft claims that there are lots of affordable devices out there for those willing to move to a newer OS version.
Of course, it remains to be seen how many people decide to move from Windows XP until April 8, but the existing statistics aren’t too encouraging for Microsoft.