Companies Utilizing Legacy Systems

1557 WordsSep 28, 20157 Pages
Ethicality of companies utilizing legacy systems INTRODUCTION Purpose Companies often struggle to stay abreast of current technology, and with good reason. Both software and hardware capabilities continue to expand at an alarming rate. In mere decades, the behemoth computers of the 1940’s have evolved into pocket-sized devices with significantly more computing power and memory. Every year, there’s a new wave of technology designed to replace the old, making it difficult to determine what is appropriately “up-to-date.” Companies that do not have the resources to adapt to new technologies usually fall behind, opting to maintain so-called legacy systems instead of upgrading. In the information age, where nearly everything is digitized and…show more content…
As of April 8, 2014, Microsoft officially discontinued support for Windows XP (“Windows XP Support Has Ended”). Consequently, the operating system no longer receives updates with the rest of the supported Windows family. Vulnerabilities detected will continue to go unpatched, and new software will become increasingly difficult to run on XP as time progresses. The implications of Windows XP’s legacy status will be explored further, and serve as a main point of discussion in later sections. DISCUSSION Prevalence of legacy systems Despite their inherent difficulty to maintain, several companies continue to run legacy systems for years at a time. One study conducted by Bit9 + Carbon Black revealed that 44% of US and UK companies are still running Windows XP. It also uncovered that 34% of organizations continue to use a combination of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, and that 10% use Windows XP exclusively (“Nearly Half”). Another study at the TechEd North America 2014 conference showed that 53% of the attending companies still used XP (Whitney). However, this issue is not limited to old Windows operating systems. There are also banks that run on systems developed in the 1970’s and 80’s (Lamb). Clearly, legacy systems have a strong hold on US companies. Vulnerabilities associated with legacy
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