Sunday 19 January 2014

95% of the ATMs still run XP!


By on Sunday, January 19, 2014

Even though we have seen Vista, Windows 7 and recently Windows 8, there are still a lot of us, who would not give up on XP. My old thinkpad still rocks XP without any problems and I cannot seem to let go of it. This is a case with lot of people especially businesses who are still running XP at their heart.  Microsoft has recently said that they will extend the support for its Windows XP security products through July 2015 and we keep hoping that it will be extended. But Microsoft has warned that this will be the end and added that “the effectiveness of anti malware solutions on out-of-support operating systems is limited.” So incase you still have an XP somewhere, you might want to upgrade the one. But we can do that as it is easy for us to upgrade or or two systems. But what about the businesses?


 Bloomberg Businessweek reports that some of the most important machines that desperately need to upgrade from Windows XP are ATMs, of which an estimated 95% still run on Microsoft’s older operating system! Now that some big number. Imagine, if they are not upgraded and how this can potentially expose almost all of our ATM's to an hijack by someone. Now, this means that Banks have to get all the machines on their Network upgraded and this might be almost all of their machines.  There is some good news here as well as Banks would be able to upgrade their newer and more advanced machines to a newer version of windows through their network. However, Older ATMs, will still have to have a new version of Windows installed one by one! This means that technicians will have to make lot of visits to these ATM's and get the system upgraded! This might be costly for the business but in the end , everything can be sorted out! Well, I remember going out yesterday to withdraw some money out of an ATM near my house which has always been there! When I take a look at that machine, I am sure that there is no way this old soul can rock an operating system like Windows 7. This means that many of the older machines like the one near my house will have to get a major revamp to their internals or get simply discarded as junk and sold as scrap! The effects of technological progress as some would say.


Source:

Bloomberg Business Week

About Shaunak

A tech lover who loves writing and sharing with people.

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