Securing legacy XP machines

This is a potential problem for companies because of the surprisingly high number of XP machines out there, not least in the manufacturing arena - Gartner estimates that 20% of business endpoints still run XP and one-third of enterprises have more than 10% of their systems running XP. The use of XP in the healthcare and utilities sectors is even higher. Without security updates from Microsoft, companies using XP will be largely unprotected from malware and cyber attacks the next time an XP vulnerability is discovered.

Over the years, Microsoft has issued over 700 updates to XP, with 60% of those rated "critical.” Microsoft’s own research has shown that Windows XP is five times more susceptible to malware and cyber attacks than Windows 8.

Now, Forescout has published a guide which details best practice for securing XP systems and describes how the automated network access and security control platform ForeScout CounterACT can reduce the risk.

The guide explains how to limit and lock down applications, services and ports on XP machines, how to set up a plan for future XP exploits, and how to create a migration strategy from XP as quickly as possible to maintain a secure endpoint environment.