By Danielle Skinner, Marketing Executive at Aspect IT
SUPPORT will soon be ending for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.
To prepare for this, it is essential businesses review their current software and hardware; failure to do so could mean your business becomes more vulnerable to malicious attacks.
Why is support ending? It is out with the old and in with the new. Things have moved on a lot over the ten years since these systems were launched, and with several new versions having been released it was inevitable at some point that Microsoft would give notice of end of support.
After 14 January 2020, Microsoft will no longer be providing security updates or support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.
These are things that could potentially happen if you don’t upgrade:
• Increased risk of a cyber-attack: As new security issues come to light, updates to address these issues for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 will no longer be issued, meaning these systems will become increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attack, with the associated increase of risk to your business.
• Putting your business’s and customers’ data at risk: The increased risk of being the victim of a cyber-attack means you are leaving yourselves open to the potential loss of key data and systems that keep your business running.
Any data held about your customers may also be at risk, and you may encounter legislative issues relating to The Data Protection Act 2018, which puts an obligation on you to ensure you are applying appropriate security measures.
• Upgrades become more expensive: The further away your systems are from their current releases/versions, the more costly and time consuming it becomes to upgrade them.
You may not be able to take advantage of possible cheaper incremental version updates and you may also find other software that runs on these systems may not be compatible with later operating system versions.
The hardware on which the systems run may need upgrading in order to take advantage of newer operating systems. It seems to be fact of life that as software versions move on the resources needed to run them also increase.
If either the software or hardware fails, it could take more time to resolve, increasing potential consultancy costs, along with associated costs of losing systems on which your business relies.
• Reduced productivity: Over time, older systems can eventually become so slow that they start to impact on productivity.
Need to upgrade? Call us now! If you are a current user of Windows 7 and/or Windows Server 2008, get in touch today to discuss upgrading to the latest software and hardware. Just call 0161 241 9050 to find out more.
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