January 14, 2020, marks the end of the road for Windows 7. From today, Microsoft will no longer support it, so any computer running the operating system won’t receive any further security updates or patches.

This means that if you continue to use Windows 7, your IT system will be vulnerable to viruses and malware. The 25% of machines still running this could be targeted by hackers and you should as a matter of urgency move to a more secure platform.

Just think about what could happen if your IT system running Windows 7 is hacked and you lose valuable data. Or the potential damage of being locked out of your system and held to ransom. If you have taken out an insurance policy to protect you against cyber-attacks, using Windows 7 will more than likely invalidate your insurance. If you read your policy, you should be using up-to-date hardware, software and operating systems that are supported by the service provider. Continuing to use Windows 7 that has no security updates will invalidate your business insurance.

If you do get hacked and lose data, the ICO will be looking seriously at your business. And if you are still using Windows 7 which increases your vulnerability to being hacked, the regulator will take a dim view and the fines are likely to be higher than for a normal data breach.

So it really is a good idea to move to a more secure system. Windows 7 is out-dated technology – it’s over 10 years old, so systems have improved radically since Windows 7 was first introduced. Migrating to the latest Windows 10 will improve your business and be much more reliable and flexible to support your business.

There are many good reasons for adopting Windows 10 and the reduced security of Windows 7 is just one of them. If you haven’t reviewed your IT strategy for a while, now is the right time to make sure that your systems support your business goals. For more information and advice on how to develop the optimum IT strategy for your business, contact us.