You must have heard that Microsoft is going to end their extended support for Windows XP in April 2014 while it might be significant for the general users to upgrade to the latest OS by Microsoft or move to the open source Linux OS, but it is an entirely different scenario for banks — why?
You would be amazed to know that roughly 95 percent of ATMs in the world are running Windows XP — and it is about to become an expensive problem. This is where banks will have to take crucial steps to decide what they can do best to ensure the security of their users by choosing one of the options they have — i) Upgrade to the latest OS or move to Linux environment (which is free and open source Operating system) or ii) To pay Microsoft to keep providing the extended security updates for Windows XP.
Of these two options, the second one is easier and cheaper for banks as they won’t require anything but to pay the company to keep tracking the security holes in the OS and make sure it is secure enough for the transactions through ATM machines.
Machine designer NCR says that only a third of banks will upgrade their ATMs to a newer OS before official XP support ends on April 8th, leaving many institutions little choice but to pay Microsoft for an extended contract if they still want support.
Your bank might end up collecting the share of this expense from you, as the estimate suggests that bug UK firms might have to pay up to $100 million each to make the leap.
