Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh, except Microsoft had already patched the vulnerability, just not for XP that was still being run. Of course you can punish them and force them to support all legacy OSes forever, until that strangles the life out of them at which point large institutions still have to run the old OS because they have too much investment in computer controlled hardware with no forward migration. Now they are locked into an insecur…
how much do you think it would cost Microsoft to support XP forever?
Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
61–70 of 304 posts
Re: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
#62From the article: >A month prior, on March 14, Microsoft had released a security update to patch this vulnerability and protect our customers. While this protected newer Windows systems and computers that had enabled Windows Update to apply this latest update, many computers remained unpatched globally. They stopped supporting Windows XP years ago, including with security updates. There are still around 100 million c…
Customers like this is why we now have Windows 10 where you're force-fed updates and the OS will change under you instead of the change being an upgrade to a new major version that you can delay for years. (Which I'm not happy about, but I can see its benefits on that scale)
The best argument for Microsoft doing wrong here might be that they limit their (expensive) super-extended support to large organizations. Since they do the work, keeping a few boxes with special hardware patched should be an option for smaller shops as well (and is IMHO easier to defend than keeping a large network full of XP desktops running because ?)
Re: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
#63Another lesson learned: don't bundle your security updates with your cool new features nobody wants, Microsoft. This will aggravate the problem as more people/companies will defer updates.
https://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2015/09/11/microsoft-is-aut...
This one consumes me several gigabytes on my C drive without my permission.
https://www.tenforums.com/windows-updates-activation/55185-w...
This one acts like malware.
And this one: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3039827/windows/7-ways-window...
I don't know why I'd choose a operating system does that.
It pushed some telemetry updates, which arouses some privacy concerns (only after Microsoft's aggressive attitudes about Windows 10 promotion, before that I was OK with its telemetry updates. I'm aware sometimes telemetry tracking means good.)
And much more.
All of these behaviors make me think that I'd rather lose my data than suffer from these "features".
Re: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
#64Should hospitals such as UK's NHS and other such organizations use dumb terminals (or chromebooks) instead of Windows? That way data is centralized on servers where it is easy to backup and harder for hackers to hold to ransom.
Re: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Complete BS. This is what happens when you have top class PR at your disposal to define the narrative. Microsoft is responsible for their shit software getting exploited first and foremost. Seriously fine Microsoft and by day after tomorrow that 3500 security engineer number will jump to something realistic. Instead what will happen is more tightening of the walled garden, overcharging of support/security contracts a…
No system is perfect. Remember Heartbleed? Microsoft released a patch to correct this particular issue in March, however the IT infrastructure in companies is slow, the whole process is convoluted, yada yada. The point is: the NSA caused this particular problem. Steps should be taken be everyone to ensure something like this doesn't happen ever again.
If Russian government intelligence agency security researchers found that bug first would you say that they have a responsibility to disclose it to Microsoft (notably a United States company)? Would you be surprised if they felt and acted differently?
Re: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
#66Re: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
#67Should hospitals such as UK's NHS and other such organizations use dumb terminals (or chromebooks) instead of Windows? That way data is centralized on servers where it is easy to backup and harder for hackers to hold to ransom.
It'd be a good start if they just didn't use Windows. But yeah, definitely. It's pretty damned unlikely that an OpenBSD backup server would get wormed, unless an ME exploit is involved.
Re: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
#68Re: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you fear updating to Windows 10?
a) telemetry b) I'm worried my fairly nicely working Win7 environment will not work so well after updating to 10, as much as I want to get current with some genuinely useful features. I'm generally a Microsoft "fan", but this is one of the many reasons I hate on them as much as Linux fans.
Re: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack
#70It's definitely not end-users either. There's a grocery store that just went up nearby that I saw Windows XP splash screen on when one of the cashiers rebooted. No joke, new store, Windows XP computers that handle money. Microsoft may have cultivated this nightmare, but it seems everyone wants to live in it.