14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP is now affected by a new vulnerability, but while this is indeed serious business and users need to deal with it as soon as possible, it’s also another sign that those sticking to this old platform will soon face major security risks.
Microsoft is now investigating reports, after receiving information regarding a number of attacks attempting to exploit this flaw, but a fully working patch won’t arrive for the time being. At least, not until December 2013 Patch Tuesday when Microsoft is scheduled to release fixes for many other glitches.
The security experts at the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC) have issued a statement warning that today’s vulnerability is not all about flaws that need to be urgently addressed by the Redmond-based tech giant.
“The real story here isn't the zero day or the workaround fix, or even that Adobe is involved. The real story is that this zero day is just the tip of the iceberg,” the advisory reads.
“Malware authors today are sitting on their XP zero day vulnerabilities and attacks, because they know that after the last set of hotfixes for XP is released in April 2014 (which we're now officially calling ‘WinMageddon’), that their exploits will work forever against hundreds of thousands (millions?) of XP workstations.”
And this pretty much makes sense. At this point, Windows XP is installed on more than 30 percent of computers worldwide, but Microsoft hopes that only 13 percent of the users would actually stick to this particular OS version.
Many users, on the other hand, are fairly disappointed with Windows XP’s end of support and even though no patches and security fixes get released beyond April 2014, they still want to stay on this operating system. Of course, Microsoft issues security warnings with every single occasion, reminding that hackers will clearly try to make the most of vulnerable XP machines by exploiting every newly found flaw.