U.S. Navy to Microsoft: We'll give you $9M to keep Windows XP alive

Of course Congress could give them money to update their systems. Nah, weapons are sexier.

The U.S. Navy is still dependent on a 12-year-old operating system that Microsoft has declared obsolete.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) discontinued support for Windows XP on April 8, and no longer provides security patches for the popular operating system. That means any new vulnerabilities hackers discover will not be fixed.

The U.S. military's computers are obviously a target for many foreign hackers, and vulnerabilities are a serious concern for the government. The U.S. government is already reeling from the breach – likely by Chinese hackers – of the Office of Personnel Management, which revealed personal data on 18 million current and former employees.

A hack of the U.S. Navy could reveal more than personnel records.

So the U.S. Navy is paying Microsoft $9.1 million to provide security patches to Windows XP, Office 2003, Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2003. The entire contract could be worth as much as $30.8 million if it's extended to 2017, according to IT World. The Navy still has 100,000 machines running this legacy software.

The Washington Post reported back in March that more than 10 percent of government computers still run Windows XP and that hackers have been stockpiling exploits for years, waiting for Microsoft to sunset its support for the operating system.


http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2015/06/u-s-navy-to-microsoft-well-give-you-9m-to-keep.html?ana=e_tf&s=newsletter&ed=2015-06-24&u=ColXVN5SPzQtLHFP87ho2w07857290&t=1435190606