Indian organization and banks at risk cause of Windows XP, Microsoft warns

Windows XP, one of the most widely used operating systems is nearing its end as Microsoft has issued a notice warning home and commercial users to upgrade to one of the later versions. The company had announced back in April that it will stop all the technical support for the said platform in April 2014.

Over 34,000 branches of Indian public sector banks would become vulnerable as the popular Windows XP operating system would no longer be supported by Microsoft in about 150 days, shows a study conducted by the software giant.

The study on the Indian banking sector, conducted by Ascentius Consulting on behalf of Microsoft, said penetration of Windows XP in the sector is as high 70 per cent.

Moreover the report, titled “Strategic Impact of End of Support of Windows XP on Banks in India”, stated that banks could see a loss of income to the tune of Rs. 300 Crore over a period of 3 days – given that it takes that long for a major incident to be resolved and the system to be up and functioning normally. 

\ The report noted that while Banks were aware of the eventual termination of this extended support for Windows XP, many Banks that have not paid sufficient attention to addressing the risk emanating from this event. This despite that Microsoft has been warning companies for more than a year that the support for the Windows XP SP3 is going to stop. 

Back in April 2012, the company had said "If your organization has not started the migration to a modern PC, you are late." Even the Indian government has lent its voice to emphasize the criticality of the Windows XP migration. That the Indian government released, in June 2013, an advisory encouraging organizations to upgrade to later versions of the Windows OS to avoid non-compliance issues that may result in the “suspension of certificates by Certifying and Auditing organizations,” should point to the severity of this issue.