Software

Microsoft slams nails in Windows Vista, XP SP2, 2000

Switching off life support, left to breathe alone

Kelly Fiveash Fri 26 Feb 2010 // 12:25 UTC

Microsoft will kill support for its unloved Windows Vista operating system a few months ahead of its Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000 planned end-of-the-road-for-updates deadline.

The company said yesterday that a Vista service pack-free OS will no longer get MS support after 13 April this year, leaving the flaky platform entirely at the mercy of hackers who might wish to exploit that code.

Meanwhile, XP SP2 and all versions of Windows 2000 support will trundle along until 13 July, when Redmond will turn out the security update lights on those operating systems.

At the same time Microsoft will move Windows Server 2003 from mainstream support to the extended support phase, which means customers will have to pay for help from MS, with only security updates remaining free.

“Microsoft believes it is important that all customers take action prior to the end of support date, not only so that they know their options and can prepare, but also to ensure their environments are as secure as possible,” said the company, before wheeling out a list of “incentives” to convince consumers and businesses to upgrade their operating systems.

The software maker has more about switching off OS life support for several of its platforms here. ®

Similar topics

Microsoft

Broader topics

Bill Gates

Narrower topics

Corrections Send us news

Other stories you might like

Robotics and 5G to spur growth of SoC industry – report

Big OEMs hogging production and COVID causing supply issues

Brandon Vigliarolo Sun 22 May 2022 // 14:01 UTC

The system-on-chip (SoC) side of the semiconductor industry is poised for growth between now and 2026, when it's predicted to be worth $6.85 billion, according to an analyst's report.
Chances are good that there's an SoC-powered device within arm's reach of you: the tiny integrated circuits contain everything needed for a basic computer, leading to their proliferation in mobile, IoT and smart devices.
The report predicting the growth comes from advisory biz Technavio, which looked at a long list of companies in the SoC market. Vendors it analyzed include Apple, Broadcom, Intel, Nvidia, TSMC, Toshiba, and more. The company predicts that much of the growth between now and 2026 will stem primarily from robotics and 5G.

Continue reading
Deepfake attacks can easily trick live facial recognition systems online

Plus: Next PyTorch release will support Apple GPUs so devs can train neural networks on their own laptops

Katyanna Quach Sun 22 May 2022 // 11:01 UTC

In brief Miscreants can easily steal someone else's identity by tricking live facial recognition software using deepfakes, according to a new report.
Sensity AI, a startup focused on tackling identity fraud, carried out a series of pretend attacks. Engineers scanned the image of someone from an ID card, and mapped their likeness onto another person's face. Sensity then tested whether they could breach live facial recognition systems by tricking them into believing the pretend attacker is a real user.
So-called "liveness tests" try to authenticate identities in real-time, relying on images or video streams from cameras like face recognition used to unlock mobile phones, for example. Nine out of ten vendors failed Sensity's live deepfake attacks.

Continue reading
Lonestar plans to put datacenters in the Moon's lava tubes

How? Founder tells The Register 'Robots… lots of robots'

Katyanna Quach Sat 21 May 2022 // 14:01 UTC

Imagine a future where racks of computer servers hum quietly in darkness below the surface of the Moon.
Here is where some of the most important data is stored, to be left untouched for as long as can be. The idea sounds like something from science-fiction, but one startup that recently emerged from stealth is trying to turn it into a reality. Lonestar Data Holdings has a unique mission unlike any other cloud provider: to build datacenters on the Moon backing up the world's data.
"It's inconceivable to me that we are keeping our most precious assets, our knowledge and our data, on Earth, where we're setting off bombs and burning things," Christopher Stott, founder and CEO of Lonestar, told The Register. "We need to put our assets in place off our planet, where we can keep it safe."

Continue reading

Conti: Russian-backed rulers of Costa Rican hacktocracy?

Also, Chinese IT admin jailed for deleting database, and the NSA promises no more backdoors

Brandon Vigliarolo Sat 21 May 2022 // 11:01 UTC

In brief The notorious Russian-aligned Conti ransomware gang has upped the ante in its attack against Costa Rica, threatening to overthrow the government if it doesn't pay a $20 million ransom.
Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves said that the country is effectively at war with the gang, who in April infiltrated the government's computer systems, gaining a foothold in 27 agencies at various government levels. The US State Department has offered a $15 million reward leading to the capture of Conti's leaders, who it said have made more than $150 million from 1,000+ victims.
Conti claimed this week that it has insiders in the Costa Rican government, the AP reported, warning that "We are determined to overthrow the government by means of a cyber attack, we have already shown you all the strength and power, you have introduced an emergency."

Continue reading
China-linked Twisted Panda caught spying on Russian defense R&D

Because Beijing isn't above covert ops to accomplish its five-year goals

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Fri 20 May 2022 // 20:03 UTC

Chinese cyberspies targeted two Russian defense institutes and possibly another research facility in Belarus, according to Check Point Research.
The new campaign, dubbed Twisted Panda, is part of a larger, state-sponsored espionage operation that has been ongoing for several months, if not nearly a year, according to the security shop.
In a technical analysis, the researchers detail the various malicious stages and payloads of the campaign that used sanctions-related phishing emails to attack Russian entities, which are part of the state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec Corporation.

Continue reading
FTC signals crackdown on ed-tech harvesting kid's data

Trade watchdog, and President, reminds that COPPA can ban ya

Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Fri 20 May 2022 // 19:26 UTC

The US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday said it intends to take action against educational technology companies that unlawfully collect data from children using online educational services.
In a policy statement, the agency said, "Children should not have to needlessly hand over their data and forfeit their privacy in order to do their schoolwork or participate in remote learning, especially given the wide and increasing adoption of ed tech tools."
The agency says it will scrutinize educational service providers to ensure that they are meeting their legal obligations under COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

Continue reading

Mysterious firm seeks to buy majority stake in Arm China

Chinese joint venture's ousted CEO tries to hang on - who will get control?

Dylan Martin Fri 20 May 2022 // 18:49 UTC

The saga surrounding Arm's joint venture in China just took another intriguing turn: a mysterious firm named Lotcap Group claims it has signed a letter of intent to buy a 51 percent stake in Arm China from existing investors in the country.
In a Chinese-language press release posted Wednesday, Lotcap said it has formed a subsidiary, Lotcap Fund, to buy a majority stake in the joint venture. However, reporting by one newspaper suggested that the investment firm still needs the approval of one significant investor to gain 51 percent control of Arm China.
The development comes a couple of weeks after Arm China said that its former CEO, Allen Wu, was refusing once again to step down from his position, despite the company's board voting in late April to replace Wu with two co-chief executives. SoftBank Group, which owns 49 percent of the Chinese venture, has been trying to unentangle Arm China from Wu as the Japanese tech investment giant plans for an initial public offering of the British parent company.

Continue reading
SmartNICs power the cloud, are enterprise datacenters next?

High pricing, lack of software make smartNICs a tough sell, despite offload potential

Tobias Mann Fri 20 May 2022 // 17:32 UTC

SmartNICs have the potential to accelerate enterprise workloads, but don't expect to see them bring hyperscale-class efficiency to most datacenters anytime soon, ZK Research's Zeus Kerravala told The Register.
SmartNICs are widely deployed in cloud and hyperscale datacenters as a means to offload input/output (I/O) intensive network, security, and storage operations from the CPU, freeing it up to run revenue generating tenant workloads. Some more advanced chips even offload the hypervisor to further separate the infrastructure management layer from the rest of the server.
Despite relative success in the cloud and a flurry of innovation from the still-limited vendor SmartNIC ecosystem, including Mellanox (Nvidia), Intel, Marvell, and Xilinx (AMD), Kerravala argues that the use cases for enterprise datacenters are unlikely to resemble those of the major hyperscalers, at least in the near term.

Continue reading
US fears China may have ten exascale systems by 2025

China refuses to share benchmarks, US sharpens focus on developing optimized software

Dan Robinson Fri 20 May 2022 // 16:04 UTC

The US is racing to catch up with China in supercomputing performance amid fears that the country may widen its lead in exascale computers over the next decade, according to reports.
The Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is expected to be the first exascale system in the US once it is fully operational, but China already has two exascale systems up and running since last year, as reported on our sister site The Next Platform.
This lead may widen as the US has three exascale systems in the pipeline, while China aims to have up to 10 operational systems by 2025, says a report in the Financial times.

Continue reading
Repairability champ Framework's modular laptop gets a speed boost

With any other portable, this would be bad news for existing owners

Liam Proven in Prague Fri 20 May 2022 // 15:07 UTC

Laptop vendor Framework Computer has launched new faster models. Unlike in the case of any other laptop maker, if you already have one, this is good news.
Modern laptops tend to be promoted on the basis of thinness and lightness, and the Framework range is no different. The machines have 13.5-inch (8.89cm) screens, are just under 16mm thick (0.6 inch), and weigh 1.3kg (2lb 14oz).
The new models have faster 12th-generation Intel Core CPUs.

Continue reading
Boeing's Starliner CST-100 on its way to the ISS 2 years late

A couple of thruster failures shouldn't affect the Calamity Capsule's second attempt at reaching space station

Richard Speed Fri 20 May 2022 // 14:34 UTC

Two and a half years after its first disastrous launch, Boeing has once again fired its CST-100 Starliner capsule at the International Space Station.
This time it appeared to go well, launching at 18:54 ET from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral. The RD-180 main engine and twin solid rocket boosters of the Atlas V performed as planned before Starliner was pushed to near orbital velocity by the Centaur upper stage.
After separation from the Centaur, Starliner fired its own thrusters for orbital insertion and is on course for the ISS. Docking is scheduled for approximately 19:10 ET today (23:10 UTC).

Continue reading

ABOUT US

MORE CONTENT

SITUATION PUBLISHING

The Register - Independent news and views for the tech community. Part of Situation Publishing

SIGN UP TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER

Security Scorecard

Biting the hand that feeds IT © 1998–2022

Do not sell my personal information Cookies Privacy Ts&Cs