Despite a long period of notice and the inevitability of the withdrawal of support from Microsoft for its Windows XP operating system, there is still a large inventory of computers in organisations across the world which are continuing to run the old version of Windows that has now been superceded no less than three times.



There are a number of reasons for this:



1 - Some companies aren't aware of computers remaining on their networks that continue to run XP

2 - Out of date BYOD (Bring-your-own-device) equipment could be attached to a network remotely

3 - Legacy applications which are critical to the business are sometimes not supported on later versions of Windows

4 - A Windows XP computer could be operating other equipment or machinery that has long since ceased to be supported by the installer or programmer.



Whatever the reason, steps need to be taken in order to protect operations and reduce the vulnerability of other devices attached to the same network and Jack Marsal, the Director of Solution Marketing at ForeScout, provides some insight into how this can be done in his video blog.



Jack explains the top three risks, being the hidden XP devices on the network, old unsupported applications such as IE8 that are running on the network and the lack of a mitigation plan in the event of an attack. At the end of the video, the viewer is given a link to ForeScout's guide to mitigating Windows XP security risks containing 8 recommended best practices.



Click here to view Jack Marsal's video blog



By Jonathan Newell