April 8, 2014 is the end of support for Windows XP. That means it’s officially joining the ranks of legacy operating systems that will never be updated again.
What that means for security is significant. Any holes found in Windows XP after that date will never be patched by Microsoft. Currently, Microsoft pushes out several updates each month to address its flaws. Even today, 13 years after it’s initial launch, vulnerabilities are still being discovered in XP. And that will be the case for a long time.
And to make it worse…
There’s already evidence that as cyber criminals find these vulnerabilities, they’re holding onto them until after April 8. That way, there will never be a patch to fix it. Instead of alerting Microsoft to the issue now, they’d rather wait until support has ended so the hole will remain open forever.
What this means for you
If you’re still using Windows XP, you should move to a newer operating system like Windows 7 or Windows 8 prior to April 8. This will probably mean getting a new computer. But it may just be the excuse you need to upgrade.