XP and Business Liability

Windows XP in the workplace is far from dead. Among others, I'm calling out Walmart and Sam's Club for their continued use of XP. While getting my membership card replaced at Sam's today, I saw "Windows XP" screen savers on at least three terminals at the membership desk.

While I have read that Chase Bank and the Chinese Government have both received (or, in Chases' case, paid for) a one year extension of XP support from Microsoft, nobody else is getting it.

My understanding is the US Government has already banned the use of XP in hospitals, doctor's offices, etc. as unsafe under patient privacy laws. Given this, how and why are huge retailers still allowed to use it to transmit and receive credit card data?

Chains including Target and Michael's are already seeing tanking sales numbers compared to a year ago as a result of hacking. Why do companies like Walmart/Sam's continue to play Russian Roulette with customers' credit card data (or, worse yet, if somebody opens a new store account their Social Security numbers)?

Although I'm not usually a fan of government intervention, I feel this is getting out of hand. On a related note, I'm also curious if any essential government agencies (IRS, FAA air traffic control) or security sensitive installations (such as nuclear power plants) still are using XP at a risk to the public.

Am I being overly paranoid or looking at what may become a train wreck in the making?

 

I agree with you.

There is a storm coming...

 

Unfortunately; the caveat emptor (buyer beware!) of the 21st century is in failing to update flash player, java, Adobe Reader, Skype, iTunes, and any other apps that are web enabled. They are the attack vectors most often used and nobody is making users aware of the need. You can be running Windoze 8.1; but, if it has an older version of Java and you see the wrong webpage, the stuff will hit your fan!
XP is more secure than OS X due to 14 years of hardening and, again, its not the O/S that's the source of the most problems.....

 

XP is not hardened enough to make that assertion, IMO.

Would you dare run it naked, out of the box?

 

These businesses are paying for extended XP support, there is no need for concern.

The hacking & data breaches have nothing to do with XP, they occur at the server database level not the desktop level.

 

No offense, but do you have a source (link) verifying this? The only extra support I have seen tech news stories on are Chase Bank and the Chinese Government.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/07/uk-government-microsoft-windows-xp-public-sector

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2139...available-after-april-8-just-not-for-you.html

According to Microsoft, Custom Support requires an active Premier Support agreement, and customers should work with their Microsoft Account Representative regarding their Custom Support options for Windows XP. According to the company, Custom Support is designed for customers who need a bit more time to complete their Windows XP migrations, not as a way to extend life to an expired product. Customers must have a migration plan with quarterly deployment milestones and a project completion end date in order to be accepted into the Custom Support program.

And, to be specific,”there is not a consumer equivalent” of Custom Support, Microsoft confirmed.