Organizations Still Running Windows XP SP2 Face Security Risks

Are you still running Windows XP Service Pack 2 within your organization? If so, you may be putting yourself and your users at risk. Companies still using Windows XP SP2 face security risks as Microsoft (News - Alert) recently phased out support for the operating system’s service pack level.

A study (PDF) of 278,498 PCs in the private and public sector conducted by tech vendor Softchoice found almost half of them still stuck on Windows XP SP2. On July 13th, Microsoft cut the cord on support for this version of Windows, leaving those still running it without a safety net. The lack of support means that security updates and patches are no longer available, making PCs more vulnerable to malware and other threats.

Beyond the sheer number of computers, Softchoice (News - Alert) also estimates that eight out of every ten organizations have a large prevalence of PCs with XP SP2.

Microsoft first announced the July 13th support cutoff for XP SP2 back in April of 2008, leading Softchoice to express surprise that 45 percent of the PCs analyzed are still using it. As a result, Softchoice urges organizations that aren’t already on top of this to move fast to update their PCs.

Though companies are sometimes hesitant to jump to the latest service pack, XP SP3 has certainly been around long enough to waylay any concerns. Softchoice notes that there were some documented issues when SP3 was first released, but it was still more of an incremental upgrade than SP2. Though many users and companies put off their SP3 installations initially, Softchoice believes there’s no longer any reason not to upgrade at this point.

Of course, any upgrade will cost a company some time, money, and resources. But the bigger risk is to continue to run an operating system and service pack level that’s no longer supported.

To compile its study, Softchoice analyzed 117 different organizations in the U.S. and Canada across a variety of industries. The data was collected between Jan. and June of 2010.