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Hundreds of Millions of PCs Remain Vulnerable as Windows 7 Reaches End of Life:
Windows 7 has reached end of life on Tuesday, January 14, 2020, but hundreds of millions of PCs worldwide still run the operating system, which likely makes them a more tempting target for malicious cyber actors.
Microsoft will no longer provide free security updates, patches or technical support for Windows 7, which makes devices running this version of the operating system more vulnerable to attacks and more likely to be targeted.
The latest data from Statcounter and NetMarketShare shows that roughly 30% of the over 1 billion PCs estimated to exist worldwide still use Windows 7. According to Statcounter, the percentage is just under 18% in the United States.
Kaspersky reported in late August that, based on its data, nearly half of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprises had still used Windows 7. More recent data from Kollective suggests that the situation has not improved too much, with 53% of businesses in the US and UK still using Windows 7 devices.
While these statistics may not be highly accurate, at least a few hundred million PCs around the world likely still run Windows 7. It's worth noting that when Windows XP reached end of life in April 2014, the operating system also had a market share estimated at roughly 30%.
[...] Chris Morales, head of security analytics at Vectra, a California-based provider of technology that leverages AI to detect and hunt for cyber attackers, does not believe the actual impact will be catastrophic.
"For home users that want to cling on for whatever reasons, many of the potential problems could be mitigated using other tools and methods, like VPN, encryption, security software, and a good secure home router," Morales said.
"For many enterprises, they will simply sign up for Windows 7 Extended Security Updates for the next three years of coverage. This covers anything deemed critical or important," Morales added. "Which means not much will change in the attack landscape for enterprises with the Windows 7 Extended Security Updates. Most major apps like Google Chrome browser will also continue to be supported with updates for all users."
Many will lose support for programs that ran on WIndows 7, too.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 21 2020, @12:41AM (3 children)
If you were posting this 20, maybe even 15 years ago, you might have had a point. Now? Good grief, just install Mint and call it a day. Not even you can fuck that up. Gentoo and company still exist for the utter grognards like yours truly who get wet over seeing GCC's output scrolling by like an outtake from the Matrix movies.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by ilsa on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:26PM (1 child)
So... your argument is that because you can install linux easily, that means everyone is good to go?
Installation was just one of the countless problems Linux had. One of the biggest ones being the arrogant community surrounding it that is utterly unwilling to understand the needs of normal users and why said users are still turned off by Linux.
Linux may be easier now than before but it's still complicated. More specifically, Linux is extremely fragile the moment you put a pinky toe outside of whatever experience has been curated for you. Suddenly you need to deal with command lines, config files, etc. I've lost track of the number of times I have had to, and still have to, suddenly go full nerd to troubleshoot some problem with the OS or DE or library conflicts or wierd permissions or whatever, when all I wanted to do was get my primary task done. Hell, it's 2020 and I still don't trust Linux to suspend/resume reliably. (I don't expect Windows to either, but that's another story...)
And then there's the fact that people either need or insist on using applications that are simply not available in Linux. Quickbooks and Microsoft Office the Adobe Suite are obvious examples. People don't run an OS for the sake of running an OS. They care about getting the thing they want done, done. And no, explaining to them that they need to use Wine to make them run is not an acceptable answer.
That is why the single most popular "Linux" distributions, arn't. MacOS (FreeBSD derivative but whatver). iOS. ChromeOS. Android (Sorta, not counting bullshit like TouchWiz and whatnot). All extremely controlled, curated and restricted platforms that provide a consistent and reliable user experience regardless of the device. They have a huge ecosystem of applications that people can access. They generally just work without much fiddling. That's the experience users expect to have. And if that's not provided out of the box, someone has to make up for that lack. I sure as hell don't have time for that level of handholding.
While it's true that any one of the mentioned problems can still be found in more mainstream environments, Linux manages to hit every single pain point while providing very little payoff in return. It's finicky. It doesn't have a reliable experience. (Different DEs and apps have can have wildly different UIs). It has poor mainstream software support (Server stuff and software dev is not mainstream). Linux may be improving, but the improvements have been slow and incremental. Meanwhile commercial software is constantly shifting the goalposts of what people expect their systems of being able to do, and Linux folk can't provide a decent experience cause they're too busy arguing about how systemd is a violation of the traditional unix philosophy. And that is why people don't use Linux, no matter how easy it is to install.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 22 2020, @04:09AM
Wisdom and strength come to us weeping. TANSTAAFL. Or however else you wish to word this.
Windows is in the end-stage. It's turning into the cancerous rent-seeking corporate hellscape we've been warning about for ages. If people want to stay in said hellscape, well, I can't really persuade them otherwise. And you make one solid point here, which is that the programs people need to make a living are often Windows-only. But that aside, home users have very little need for it aside from games (and even then, Steam runs on Linux...). The barrier to entry is stupidly low now for simple use cases.
Yes, there is going to be a "curated" experience at the low end, but if that weren't there, everything would be Gentoo. Which is another example of the inevitable tradeoff: ease of use vs. control. There is no easy solution to this, and we've *let* this happen by being, collectively, ignorant and lazy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday January 21 2020, @06:24PM
Ive said over and over again that I gave Mint a shot and it hard-choked during install. I tend not to give software that can't even install a second chance. Even Ubuntu MATE is giving me shit on standard modern hardware.