How Windows XP Helped Make the Ransomware Crisis Possible

Online security is a perpetual battle between hackers looking for vulnerabilities and tech companies patching them as soon as they’re found.

But not with Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system, because Microsoft hasn’t supported it since 2014.

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In theory, everyone should have abandoned Windows XP by now. In reality, many people either haven’t bothered or simply can’t afford to upgrade. (Notable users include the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, which may have up to 90 percent of its computers on the system.) The result is, as Wired reports, a massive target for hackers, as they demonstrated during the recent ransomware attacks.

Worse, these defects still aren’t being addressed—again, Microsoft no longer supports it—meaning the next attack is only a matter of time.