Millions exposed to cyber risk as Microsoft Windows 7 reaches end-of-life

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Millions exposed to cyber risk as Microsoft Windows 7 reaches end-of-life

Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 operating systems reached their end-of-life (EOL) date on January 14, 2020. This means that Microsoft will no longer provide patches to secure, update, fix or improve these systems, and, as a result, users who decide not to upgrade or change systems could be exposed to dangerous cyber vulnerabilities.

Windows 7 has long been one of the most popular Microsoft operating systems. Even today, almost 11 years after it was first launched, millions of PCs are still running Windows 7 despite Microsoft spending years of effort trying to get users to upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge. Estimates from Netmarketshare in December 2019 indicate that approximately 26.6% of all users operating Windows OS are using Windows 7, giving the recent EOL event a cyber risk profile that may be unprecedented in the history of software.

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Eddie Chang (pictured), VP of cyber risk management at Travelers, commented: “Now that they’ve reached EOL, these systems are gradually going to become more…

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