XP’s expiration will expose thousands of government PCs to malware

An investigation into the numbers of PCs, conducted by The Register, in the public sector still running Windows XP has revealed that many thousands will still be using the operating system, even when its end-of-life expires. HMRC and NHS Scotland said that they both had migration plans in place to replace their XP systems, moving to Windows 7 in most cases.

Thousands of PCs at Britain’s biggest public sector bodies will miss Microsoft’s April deadline to abandon Windows XP before open season for hackers begins. HMRC and the NHS in England and Scotland will still be running thousands of systems using Windows XP after Microsoft turns off the support lifeline on 8 April. HMRC has 85,784 PCs, of which 85,268 are moving off Windows XP and 58,631 are ditching Internet Explorer 6. NHS Scotland has 3,603 PCs with 3,537 on Windows XP and the same number on IE6.