About 77% of the British organisations are still using Microsoft’s 12 year-old Windows XP operating system (OS) in their IT domain, despite the end of support deadline being just a week away, a new research revealed.
In addition, less than a quarter of organisations had their desktops domains still powered by Windows XP, while typically the overall penetration of the OS is anticipated to be below 13%, the UK software firm AppSense commissioned report added.
AppSense EMEA chief technologist Simon Townsend said it might be the case that an XP machine is running a print server, or some other application which is not entirely obvious.
"The reality is though, that one machine could potentially put an entire network at risk and without adequate protection it could be a step into the unknown for U.K. businesses," Townsend added.
"While it’s clear that organisations are committed to getting off the Windows XP platform in the medium term, they are opening their organisations to potential threats by leaving systems unsupported."
The software firm also recommends IT departments to solve the issue as soon as possible and update to at least Windows 7 OS.
The research added that 84% of XP users would update to a new OS within the next year, with 70 of IT decision makers were either ‘not’ or ‘not at all’ worried about security after Microsoft ends support.
Another recent report added that London’s Metropolitan police force would not be ready for end-of-support deadline for Windows XP, with 34,210 of the overall 34,436 desktop PCs are still powered by XP OS.
The US software major started sending pop-up warnings to notify XP users about the end of technical and security support for its OS by 8th April.
