End of XP support and online banking

ColdIron

robatwork wrote: »

In Sainsbury's yesterday, and saw one of their tills starting up. Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 is common for ATMs in South East Asia. It was a rock solid O/S and perfectly fine in closed systems

robatwork

Indeed - although it depends on your definition of closed in this context.

barak

macman wrote: »

.....it will become increasingly vulnerable and buggy with no new updates being issued after April.
If XP is that obsolete, why would the UK Border Agency at Heathrow still be using it? At least they were when I passed through Heathrow a week ago...

My man [my 'expert professional'!] deals with all sorts of operating systems but still likes and uses XP. He says that there are so many millions of commercial users of XP that there is no way that it won't continue to be supported. If home users no longer automatically receive future updates, the question might be whether we can somehow access those updates and install them ourselves. :undecided

Uxb

Any extended support package updates post April 2014 that these organisations might have bought for XP at huge cost will be very restricted to being tested on and suitable for their software/hardware configurations.

This is very different from when an OS is in full support when public updates will have gone though extensive checking that they do not break any other software packages and will work on the majority/all hardware.

Hominu

barak wrote: »

He says that there are so many millions of commercial users of XP that there is no way that it won't continue to be supported. If home users no longer automatically receive future updates, the question might be whether we can somehow access those updates and install them ourselves. :undecided

After April 8, 2014, Windows XP for PCs will no longer be supported by Microsoft, period, regardless of who you are. Application vendors may offer support of their products for that OS, but there will no OS updates, security or otherwise. You can of course apply to Microsoft for a support contract, but then any updates are only guaranteed for that the systems under that contract.

Windows XP Embedded, on the other hand, will continue to be updated for at least another 2 years.

grumpycrab

Specifically re. banks (we're in the banks section) have any said (or are likely to say) that they WON'T cover customer fraud claims where a transaction has been instigated by a customer using XP? Cheers.

msallen

Two or three years ago there were still ATMs running on OS/2 !

However, back to the OP. You don't need to stop using it the day that MS stops supporting it, but you should see that as a reminder to start making plans to migrate in the not too distant future.

If you're not particularly technical, and want an easy life, then I wouldn't bother with Linux. Get yourself Win7 and configure it to look as much like your old XP as you can. That's exactly what I use at home, and on my main desktop at work.

henm2

Linux Mint XFCE or LXLE are both ideal replacements for Windows XP. They are free and include lots of software such as Firefox, office software-Libre Office, media players such as VLC. Some items such as the linux version of Skype are easily downloaded.
Linux Mint and LXLE are far more secure than Windows OSs

Hominu

henm2 wrote: »

Linux Mint and LXLE are far more secure than Windows OSs

I'd like to see proof of that.

and don't forget the latest vulnerability in a lot of open source software that uses GnuTLS (which includes Linux) - the fact it wasn't actually checking the certificate properly, therefore falsely indicating that a particular communications connection was secure when it might not have been.

Secondly, grabbing a T&C document for a typical current account:

"Make sure any device you use to access online banking complies with the standards and requirements we tell you about from time to time."
"Carry out your own regular virus checks and security updates."

In 6 months, XP may be regarded as "No longer compliant", specially if another security hole is detected that no patch is available for in the public domain (ie, which Microsoft release to everyone, not just those with support agreements)

henm2

No OS is totally 100% secure. However as I said Linux based OSs are far more secure than Windows ones.

The link below gives a good explanation why.

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Why-Linux-Will-Never-Suffer-From-Viruses-Like-Windows/