The end is nigh! – Windows 7 No longer supported from January 2020

Nov 25, 2019 | General

The end is nigh! – Windows 7 No longer supported from January 2020

January 14th 2020 will see the end of life support for many Microsoft products. Just like a repeat of the end of life for Windows XP in April 2014 many of these products are still heavily relied upon in a work place environment.
On this date support and updates will end for many well used Microsoft products such as Windows 7, Office 2010, Server 2008 and Small Business Server 2011. Taking no action will leave systems vulnerable to new forms of attacks and these older, no longer supported systems would remain unpatched and left vulnerable.
A recent example of this was when the NHS was hit by WannaCry cyber-attack in May 2017. At the time many of the NHS systems was running a no longer supported Windows XP (which had no updates for three years) which is why the NHS was impacted so hard to this threat.
Since the WannaCry attack on many different organisations and company’s new legislation has came into force in the form of the General Data Protection Regulation more commonly known as GDPR. As part of GDPR you and your organisation must have shown in the event of a data breach that it has taken steps to prevent data loss. By having a system running an old unsupported operating system would ensure you have breached this regulation and with this new regulation comes very large fines.
It’s not all doom and gloom. As part of our IT support at Erud IT we would be able to assist you in the transition of migrating to a Microsoft supported system. There are a few options available and a new computer which can be a costly option isn’t always necessary.
Speaking to our engineers they would be able to advise on the best course of action that is suited for you and your business. We do advise starting to plan ahead and start to take action sooner than later to ensure a smooth transition period to newer systems.