Member Article

Server 2003… the biggest security threat of 2015

The death of Server 2003 will represent the “biggest security threat of 2015”. That’s according to Ade Foxall, CEO of Camwood and co-author of the newly launched industry report, “Server 2003 is dead. What are you going to do?”

In less than six months, Microsoft will discontinue all security updates for Server 2003, a 12-year-old operating system still running on more than 11 million servers around the world. Yet despite this fast-approaching deadline, Camwood believes that a lack of industry awareness has left the majority of organisations woefully unprepared and seriously at risk.

In support of this statement, new research from Camwood suggests that discussion of Server 2003 has been extremely limited within the IT community. Following an analysis of over five thousand IT publications, it was shown that the end of Server 2003 has received a mere 5% of the news coverage that surrounded the last major OS migration – the end of Windows XP.

Commenting on this finding, Ade Foxall said, “After the recent migration away from Windows XP, IT departments should be more aware than ever of the dangers of using an out-of-date platform. And yet, the lack of awareness surrounding Server 2003 is about to pose an unprecedented security threat to businesses all over the world.

“While this issue may not generate the same levels of interest as viruses and hackers, the truth of the matter is that these things would be far less common if it weren’t for the security weak spots left by poor OS management. It is these security weak spots that we are now expecting to see across millions of devices all around the globe. This is why we consider Server 2003 to be the most significant IT security threat for the year to come.”

Similar concerns were also raised by a recent alert from the US department of Homeland Security, warning businesses of the potential threat posed by the out-dated OS.

For more information on the end of Server 2003, or to download the full report, visit http://camwood.com/server-2003-is-dead/

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Adrian Foxall .