14 DAY TRIAL // The Australian government will pay nearly $9 million for custom Windows 7 security patches, as a number of devices in its fleet are still running the operating system that reached the end of support on January 14.
The Department of Defense and the Australian Taxation Office will spend $6,096,044 and $979,080, respectively, to keep devices running Windows 7 secure until at least January 2021. Back in December, the Australian Taxation Office also paid another $1,582,955 for extended security updates for Windows Server 2008, which also reached the end of support on January 14.
The two organizations expect devices running Windows 7 to be migrated to Windows 10 in the coming months, albeit for the time being, a further extension of the custom security patch agreement is not ruled out.
In other words, if the migration to Windows 10 isn’t completed by January 2020, the government could extend its deal with Microsoft for a second year of custom security patches.
Increasing prices for Windows 7 patches
Prices for Windows security updates double every year after the end of support is reached, so keeping devices secure is getting more expensive the more time passes after an operating system is retired.
The Department of Defense completed in 2019 the migration of over 100,000 computers from Windows XP to Windows 10. Microsoft stopped releasing security updates for Windows XP in April 2014.
Windows 7 currently has a market share of approximately 25 percent, so it’s running on 1 in 4 PCs worldwide. Most likely, this market share will decline substantially in the coming months as the transition to Windows 10 is completed by more organizations and enterprises across the world.
However, a significant number of devices are likely to stay with Windows 7 for a little longer despite the obvious security risks, with other security measures to be put in place, including limited network access and further restrictions to reduce the likelihood of cyberattacks.