14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP no longer receives support since April 2014, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for some state departments who just don't seem to care about the security risks they are exposed to because of running software that no longer gets patched.
This is the case of the Oakland Police Department, which, according to a report by DigitalTrends, is still running Windows XP on their license plate reader system.
And that's not the worst thing. In fact, this computer running Windows XP crashes every day because its 80 GB HDD is full. “80 GB?” you might ask. That's right, the local police has an HDD with only 80 GB of storage because they don't have the money to buy a bigger one.
“It's not that easy to upgrade”
There's no budget for a new HDD or computer, local officials say, not to mention that it's a lot more difficult to complete a hardware acquisition than you might be tempted to believe.
“We don’t just buy stuff from Amazon as you suggested. You have to go to a source, i.e., HP or any reputable source where the city has a contract. And there’s a purchase order that has to be submitted, and there has to be money in the budget,” Sgt. Dave Burke is quoted as saying.
“Whatever we put on the system, has to be certified. You don’t just put anything. I think in the beginning of the program, a desktop was appropriate, but now you start increasing the volume of the camera and vehicles, you have to change, otherwise you’re going to drown in the amount of data that’s being stored.”
In case you're wondering, the Oakland Police Department is not the only organization still running Windows XP, and statistics show that, depending on the country, more than 10 percent of local PCs are still running this old version of Windows.
Obviously, running Windows XP without security patches from Microsoft is extremely risky because every single vulnerability can allow hackers to break into your system, so your only option right now is to upgrade to a newer Windows version that still gets support.