In a lack of foresight that will not take anyone working professionally in IT by surprise, 70% of business are ignoring the fact that Windows Server 2003 hits EoL next Tuesday. The belief that what your clients don't know won't hurt them is endemic in the business world and this is yet more proof of that philosophy. Most businesses sign agreements guaranteeing their clients data will be stored securely and using an unsupported OS over a decade old stretches the definition of secure storage far beyond the breaking point. Your bank, your payroll company, your government, even your ISP and telephone provider are all likely to be guilty of this and you should be aware of that. It does not mean that there will be a sudden outbreak of attacks next week, instead it will be a slow rise in the number of security breaches and leaks as more and more exploits are discovered and never patched. The Inquirer does not have the numbers on how many companies are taking Microsoft's offer of support for Server 2003 beyond Tuesday for $600 per server but you can bet that the uptake is a tiny percentage of the 70%. Much like the proverbial frog, people will not notice the slow rise in security breaches until the damage is already irreversible.
"WE'RE AT T-MINUS four days and counting, and a new survey suggests that as many as 70 percent of businesses are going to miss the deadline for upgrading from Windows Server 2003."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
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- Host privilege escalation vuln bites VMware in the desktop @ The Register
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- iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan are now available in public beta @ The Inquirer
- Hardware Asylum Podcast – Asylum Builds Section and Less Technical Computex
“using an unsupported OS over
“using an unsupported OS over a decate old”
Decade…
thanks for catching that.
thanks for catching that.
They probably pay a hefty per
They probably pay a hefty per server cost for a M$ enterprise service agreement/contract anyway, and I’ll bet they have a valid reason, after doing the numbers like some businesses have done for windows XP, and some the enterprise’s expensive custom mission critical software is not available and certified for server OSs releases beyond 2003. So per server mission critical software may just cost more to rewrite/certify on a per server basis than just paying M$ more for each server instance of 2003. So the bank and credit card companies are most likely to have been paying for support contracts anyways, and with that they get extra added support from M$ that their contracts stipulate. A lot of business are running the finical software that comes on a Linux based environment in the server room, and only interfacing with their windows based servers/PCs/Laptops through some limited internal corporate cloud based applications, but the ones with windows base systems running the show, are probably supported for security updates contractually anyways.