Microsoft Extends Updates For Windows XP Security Products Until July 2015

Microsoft Extends Updates For Windows XP Security Products Until July 2015

"Microsoft today announced it will continue to provide updates to its security products for Windows XP users through July 14, 2015. Previously, the company said it would halt all updates on the end of support date for Windows XP: April 8, 2014. For consumers, this means Microsoft Security Essentials will continue to get updates after support ends for Windows XP. For enterprise customers, the same goes for System Center Endpoint Protection, Forefront Client Security, Forefront Endpoint Protection, and Windows Intune running on Windows XP."

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/201...ows-xp-security-products-july-14-2015/#!skxcl


Microsoft today announced it will continue to provide updates to its security products for Windows XP users through July 14, 2015. Previously, the company said it would halt all updates on the end of support date for Windows XP: April 8, 2014.

For consumers, this means Microsoft Security Essentials will continue to get updates after support ends for Windows XP. For enterprise customers, the same goes for System Center Endpoint Protection, Forefront Client Security, Forefront Endpoint Protection, and Windows Intune running on Windows XP.

Here is the previous guidance from a page Microsoft had set up specifically to discuss Windows XP end of support:

As a result, after April 8, 2014, technical assistance for Windows XP will no longer be available, including automatic updates that help protect your PC. Microsoft will also stop providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download on Windows XP on this date.

The company is thus providing updates to its security products for an additional 15 months. In other words, while Windows XP will no longer be a supported operating system come April, companies will be at least partially protected (the actual OS still won’t get security updates) until next July.

Microsoft is in a tricky situation. On the one hand, it needs to push consumers and businesses off of Windows XP to more secure products, and the best way to do that is to stick to its end of support date. On the other hand, there are still so many millions of Windows XP users out there that leaving them completely vulnerable could cause more harm than good.

The company thus says its research shows “that the effectiveness of antimalware solutions on out-of-support operating systems is limited” and offers the following advice:

Use modern software that has advanced security technologies and is supported with regular security updates.
Regularly apply security updates for all software installed.
Run up-to-date anti-virus software.

Windows XP is over 12 years old so if you’re still on it, only the third point still applies, and that’s just because Microsoft is bending over backwards for you. It’s time to move on.

 

dont know why they are even bothering with this.it really means very little in the grand scheme of things as not operating system security updates after april 2014.mse is not exactly one of the top av programs either so if xp users think its going to stop the exploits that are sure to come with end of support god help em.

 

MSE is a farse and no update patches means more bidness for me to remove exploits..

 

are you making fun of my lisp?

 

well ok, your forgiven but, jeth cauth i'm a nith guy.

 

Microsoft has formally announced that Windows XP will reach End of Support on April 8th, 2014. What does this mean for Symantec Endpoint Protection running on Windows XP?

You can access the official Microsoft announcement here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/endofsupport.aspx

Solution


Symantec is committed to providing the best possible security for our customers. Even as Microsoft stops publishing new functionality and security updates for Windows XP in 2014, Symantec will continue to release 32bit and 64bit definition sets which are compatible across all 32bit and 64bit Windows platforms.

Current releases of SEP 11 and SEP 12.1 are Windows XP compatible and continued maintenance and feature releases in the foreseeable future will also most likely include support for Windows XP.

After the official End of Support date from Microsoft goes into affect, Symantec Support may not be able to provide full threat resolution on XP systems due to a lack of Microsoft security patches. It has always been Symantec's stance that proper network and workstation security begins at having the most recent security patches from the OS vendor. Depending on the nature of the threats involved, Windows XP may be susceptible to viruses and risks that more recent iterations of Windows is immune to.

While Symantec Endpoint Protection's feature set of advanced heuristics, comprehensive definition based detections and proactive reputation based detections actively prevent a large number of threats, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to prevent threat activity involving unpatched exploits.

While we encourage our customers to follow best practice security procedures and update their systems to more secure operating systems when possible, Symantec will continue to release antivirus definitions and product updates compatible with Windows XP for the current product cycle.

Depending on security demands and development, future versions of SEP may drop support for retired operating systems. As always, we will provide explicit system requirements in the release notes of every product update we release.

As more substantial information on Symantec's support for Endpoint Protection on Windows XP develops, this article will be updated accordingly.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH204937

 

Talk about back peddling read on...