14 DAY TRIAL // The United States Department of Defense (US DoD) is moving 4 million computers to Windows 10, and now completing the massive transition by the end of the year has become a priority, especially with all the news concerning malware that’s going after high-profile targets.
John Zangardi, acting chief information officer at the Defense Department, has said recently that the US DoD wants all systems to be on Windows 10 by December 31, citing “reducing the cyber attacks” as one of the objectives following the system upgrade.
“The objective is to be done and in our networks by the end of this calendar year,” Zangardi was quoted as saying.
The transition to Windows 10, however, has hit several roadblocks since the original announcement, mostly because some departments had to deal with issues like hardware upgrade and compatibility problems with a number of technologies.
It’s not a secret that some critical systems are still running very old software that’s not compatible with newer versions of Windows 10, and more recently, it has surfaced that the Pentagon was still using Windows 95 and 98 on a number of missile control computers. IT security experts have implemented a series of security measures to protect these old PCs, such as blocking Internet connections and limiting network access.
WannaCry ransomware
News of US DoD’s increased focus on Windows 10 come just after a ransomware infection skyrocketed in just a few days, with thousands of computers across the world said to be compromised, including those operated by the British NHS and other state organizations in European countries.
The infection locks down a compromised system and asks for a $300 ransom in Bitcoin to restore access to files, otherwise threatening with the complete removal of local data.
Microsoft said that supported Windows systems, including Windows 10, running the latest patches and with fully up-to-date Windows Defender are completely secure against these exploits, urging all customers to update as soon as possible, especially organizations and state departments working with critical data and not having backups.