14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP no longer receives updates since 2014, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that London’s Metropolitan Police is in a hurry to upgrade to a newer operating system.
In fact, local police officers are still running Windows XP on no more, no less than 18,000 PCs, out of the total 32,751 computers they are currently operating.
On the other hand, mayor Sadiq Khan says plans to upgrade to supported Windows are already under way, though a deadline is not very clear at this point.
And missing deadlines isn’t quite something out of the ordinary for the Met Police, as the police forces originally planned to upgrade all of their computers to Windows 8 by March 2016, with custom support that would be provided by Microsoft in exchange for a hefty amount of money to keep them protected.
8 PCs running Windows 10
This didn’t happen, however, and now the police are planning on going forward with their plans to complete the transition to newer Windows, but contrary to what most people expected, Windows 10 is not the version of their choice. Instead, the Met Police will still upgrade to Windows 8.1, according to local reports.
But even this transition appears to be hitting roadblocks. Steve O’Connell, the Conservative London Assembly spokesman for policing and crime, explained that the Met Police hopes to upgrade before new attacks like WannaCry and Petya emerge, as they pose as huge threats to outdated Windows systems.
“The Met is working towards upgrading its software, but in its current state it’s like a fish swimming in a pool of sharks. It is vital the Met is given the resources to step up its upgrade timeline before we see another cyber-attack with nationwide security implications,” he said.
At this point, only 8 computers that are being used by the Metropolitan Police are running Windows 10, which is Microsoft’s latest operating system also considered to be the most secure. Windows 8.1 will continue getting security patches until 2023.