Windows XP Impossible to Secure as of April 2014
By Anand Khanse for The Windows Club
In April 2014, Microsoft will end support for Windows XP – making the popular OS almost impossible to secure.
UPDATE: (1/15/2014)
MSE on Windows XP will continue to get updates for at least another year after support for the operating system itself ends in April.
I get this question frequently of late. Honestly, it’s time to move on from XP – but if you have to stay this is good news. It’s not great – anti-malware cannot protect you from everything, and experts are expecting April will also bring a flood of malware using exploits in XP that won’t be fixed.–Leo Notenboom–PC Pitstop.
Securing Windows XP after Microsoft ends support in April 2014 is not going to be an easy job. In fact its going to be nearly impossible! But given the ground realities where around 20% users still use Windows XP, and considering the fact that there are many still many home users from various parts of the world, who just would not be able to afford to upgrade to a newer version of the Windows operating system, securing their computers is going to a big challenge!
Even today, Windows XP holds around 20% of the operating system market share. And this is the global figure. In Africa, Windows XP still commands a market share of around 33%. In Asia its 27%! In India it is around 30%, whereas in China it is 51%! That’s like literally hundreds of millions of computers still running Windows XP!
Microsoft wants this figure to come down to around 10% globally by the time it ends its support in April 2014. But, although the figure may (or may not) come down, the figures in developing countries will continue to be high. There will still be those users, in some countries, who will predominantly still be using this outdated operating system.
