Using an Unsupported Operating System
Security issues from using an unsupported operating system are too big to ignore. Businesses that still use old or unsupported products should have a plan for getting rid of or replacing them. They can improve their security without implementing a full modernization or digitization plan all at once. This can help lower the overall risk of their systems by keeping track of all the apps and systems their employees use and by putting their security measures to the test all the time. Running a web server without help from the company that makes the operating system is dangerous and can cause downtime.
Unsupported Operating System – Security Issues
Unpatched Vulnerabilities
Without regular security updates, a web server is more and more likely to be attacked in new ways. There will be new holes, but the OS vendor won’t release any new patches to fix them. The server will get hacked sooner or later, which will make customers to look elsewhere.
Rising Costs for Maintenance, Staffing, and Technical Debt
Software maintenance expenses often go down as a device nears its end of life (when most users sell off the systems) and go up afterward (when fixes, patches, and updates are no longer available). Staffing costs quickly rise, because it becomes harder to find people with specialized skills to run and maintain an aging legacy system. Technical debt costs are the costs of doing nothing, basically. In this case, letting the entire staff skill set deteriorate over time leads to an accumulation of technical debt. This is the opposite of the cost of keeping a staff competent in the operations of a legacy system. Companies might also pay experts to temporarily fill in for the lacking abilities. This would be a costly alternative to training current employees. In the worst situation, internal resources may be exhausted trying to address skill gaps, delaying the need to recruit new employees.
Losing Customer Data
The security issues from using an unsupported OS put not only your data at risk, but also of your customers. Handling sensitive information or personal data such as medical records and credit card numbers with such systems is very risky. A breach can be very expensive and you may even be held legally responsible for any damages that happen as a result. Even if your data is not stolen, you could still lose it. Unsupported systems could also stop working without warning, and it might not be possible to get the data back.
Unknown Vulnerabilities
When an OS is no longer supported, its maker has little reason to look into and report vulnerabilities when they are brought to its attention. This means that there are security holes that administrators don’t know about. Even though admins are not aware of them, hackers often share and sell them on the dark web.
Compatibility Issues
Third-Party Programs
Third-party programs that run on an unsupported OS probably aren’t supported either, since their makers only test them on the latest OS. The way third-party apps work can get worse over time, and they can even stop working all together. This means that users have to deal with applications that run slowly or don’t work at all.
Updating Systems
Keeping infrastructures up-to-date, deploying patches, and staying on top of any new or possible vulnerabilities is highly important. For many businesses, the idea of a large-scale plan for digitizing and modernizing older systems can be scary. In this hard economic time, it is especially easy to find reasons not to update. Some companies have even thought about putting less money into developing digital technologies. But this could be a very expensive mistake.
Security Patches
Without regular security updates, apps become more and more vulnerable to bugs and new ways to attack. An unsupported OS is less likely to keep up with fixing security holes in it. Attackers know this, so they will try to take advantage of it.
If a cyberattack hits your business because of the security issues, your worries about modernization will seem like nothing. And if a bad actor gets access to your customers’ important data because of a flaw in an application that hasn’t been fixed, for example, the risk to your business could be existential, and your company could face widespread downtime and financial losses.
Compliance is something else that businesses in fields like law, finance, and ecommerce need to think about. Along with losing money, companies might also have to face fines from government.
How to Protect Your Unsupported Operating System
Security Assessment
A comprehensive application security assessment is a good place to start if your business wants to protect itself from the security issues from using an unsupported operating system. During an application assessment, your consulting partner will check all the apps on your network for current flaws and possible threats. They will also give you a plan to fix the problems they find.
A full application security assessment should give your business a clear picture of how your employees use apps and what kinds of risks they pose. The evaluation should also find out if your business is using infected apps and if malware is in trusted and supported apps.
Action Plan
If you find people using apps that aren’t supported, your business should come up with a plan to get rid of or replace them right away. Using alternative controls, for example, to fix security holes caused by applications that can’t be updated, might work in the short term. But many regulatory frameworks require businesses to have a long-term plan for fixing the problem.
Future Governance
- Now that you know what apps are being used and how they are being used across your organization, make sure that you can keep this level of visibility and control over the environment.
- Ensure evaluating the systems and their security to stay one step ahead of attackers. This means that you have to keep checking that your security measures are working, look for holes, and keep track of your assets.
- Invest in tools and technologies that provide constant security monitoring and validation by simulating attacks.
- Have a strong asset management system in place can also help protect you from the risks. By keeping a current list of the devices running unpatched or older versions of software and applications, where you need to focus your efforts. If you always know where these possible weak spots are, you’re less likely to get caught.
Why would you put your business’s most important information on an OS that isn’t supported or on an application that could be hacked when you can take easy steps to reduce the risks? It’s just not worth the possible downtime, fines, and damage to your business.
