14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP remains the second most-used operating system worldwide, but according to new stats provided by security company Qualys, its user base is beginning to shrink as more and more users are actually making the switch to another operating system that still receives updates and security patches.
Microsoft today rolled out this month's Patch Tuesday updates but decided to completely ignore Windows XP< as this OS version reached end of support on April 8. This means that users still running it could become vulnerable to attacks if any of the patches found on the other Windows builds also exist in Windows XP, security experts warned.
“The majority of the vulnerabilities addressed in the updates probably affect Windows XP/Office 2003 (our guess internally is eight out of the lineup of 10), but only users who have Microsoft’s extended support agreement can get the patches. Fortunately, the XP user base continues to shrink. In our enterprise user statistics we are now looking at under 10% (close to 8%) installed,” Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, said.
Third-party statistics provided by Net Applications for the month of April claim that Windows XP is installed on 26 percent of computers worldwide, but figures are very likely to drop as more companies complete the transition to Windows 7 or 8.1.