As the Windows XP era ends, yet another major concern has come into light. As if there weren’t enough security concerns to be taken care of and now the most important machines in the world are prone to attract malware and security breaches. Yes, we are talking about the ATMs which use run on Windows XP and with the end of life of Windows XP these machines, which by the way constitute of about 95% of the world’s ATMs are going to get quite vulnerable.
The largest supplier of Automated Teller Machines in the United States, NCR disclosed the statistics of this 95%, the thought of which is quite alarming at this juncture when millions of ATMs in the world face the deadline of upgrading from XP. Bloomsberg Businessweek disclosed the number of ATMs running on Windows XP in USA, which is close to a whopping 420,000!
The deadline of the end of Windows XP is coming closer, April 8th to be precise, that is when Microsoft will stop giving any kind of official support to XP users. So the question arises that whyhaven’t these banking organizations and other business institutions not taken this upgrade seriously, when Redmond is quite clear with its cutoff date and has been out in the open for quite some time now? However, Microsoft has been generous to extend its anti-malware support till the mid of the year 2015.
According to a business group called KAL, which specializes in the ATM software, only about 15% of the Automated Teller Machines of America are capable of running on Windows 7. That clearly means that the other 85% of these ATMs are running on outdated software, when there is modern technology with touchscreen support and quicker navigation out there.
So, what do you think? Will these ATMs be enhanced further to be able to support Windows 7 or be scrapped and replaced with the modern ones?
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