On April 8 2014, almost thirteen years after it was first released, Windows XP will finally breathe its last breath and die — officially, anyway. From that date, Microsoft will no longer support the inveterate OS, meaning instability bugs and security vulnerabilities will go forever unpatched. With Windows XP’s desktop market share still around 30%, and many enterprises still months or years away from upgrading to Windows 7/8, these unsupported and insecure machines represent a serious risk to the health and security of the internet and other high-tech infrastructure. If just a single zero-day vulnerability is found after April 8, it will never be fixed. There’s no telling what damage cybercriminals might sow with such an exploit.
