75% of ATMs in the US Are Still Running Windows XP

Windows XP continues to be the second most popular OS worldwide

If you are a Windows user, you most likely know that Microsoft is planning to discontinue the ancient XP next year, so it should be a priority for everybody to move to a newer OS.

Microsoft is obviously pointing to the security risks caused by an unpatched operating system, but it appears not everyone cares about this.

According to a report by InformationWeek, no less than 75 percent of ATMs in the United States are still running Windows XP, even though the operating system is set to go dark in about 8 months.

While security is clearly a main concern for ATM operators, experts believe that it would be very hard for an attacker to identify the operating system of a cash machine.

“While the sunset of any operating system should cause concern, I am not certain that most crooks will be able to identify the OS of an ATM, thus it is less likely that simply running an ATM with Windows XP represents a bigger threat,” Marc DeCastro, research director at IDC Financial Insights, was quoted as saying.

As far as end users are concerned, Windows XP is still powering about 37 percent of computers worldwide, a market share that makes it the second most popular operating system across the globe.