Windows XP, which was exactly 15 years old last week, is still installed on millions of computers worldwide. Even now the OS no longer receives security updates from Microsoft. The numbers come from statistics compiled by research company Net Applications.
The official release of Windows XP was on the 25th of October 2001. Since then more than 700 security updates were released for the OS, of which 57% was marked as critical. Microsoft ended the official support of XP on the 8th of April 2014. After that date no security updates were released for the OS anymore, only large organisations could still get support contracts from Microsoft.
Nevertheless, XP still has a market share of 8,27% which means that about 125 million of 1.5 billion Windows devices are still running the outdated OS. It's known that many ATMs and older systems in e.g. hospitals and governments still run on the outdated OS. When connected to the internet these systems are at serious risk of being infected with malware.
Using a trick it's still possible to receive security update for Windows XP. By setting some registry values the OS is able to identify itself as Windows Embedded PoSReady 2009 to Windows Update and this OS still receives security updates from Microsoft.
There are also some virus vendors who still support Windows XP, such as Avast and Panda Security.
