Microsoft patches Windows XP to fight 'WannaCrypt' attacks

CountMike said:

Releasing patches for systems they don't have to MS is doing themselves a favor too. Aside from good PR they it would also go long way to lower number of virus instances and shorten the interest in it. That helps W10 too for which they are most interested in. Everybody wins and bad guys just may loose.

Not only that, I'm pretty sure that if MS hadn't issued these patches, they'd be inundated with support calls, whether or not the software was in "warranty" or not. IOW, it costs money to field all the calls they'd potentially receive, tell the caller that no, they're not covered and risk the ire of the general public . . .

I can hear the comments now . . .

"Yeah, Microsoft created a patch for those XP systems they were committed to supporting until 2019, but wouldn't release it to us who didn't have the wherewithal to (fill in the blank for yourself). Really, it wouldn't have cost them much more to let us download the patch to save our skins."

And then, you'd hear:

"It's just like a big corporation! Take care of the big customers but chunk us little guys in the dirt! They don't care about us!"

So, as your post tends to say, Count, releasing a patch for Windows XP and 8 plus Windows Server 2003 is good all the way around. There are fewer systems out there to help spread this plague, Microsoft gets a little credit (although some would give 'em a black eye) and the end user wins. Yes, I know it was killed this time, but these terroristic criminals will try again with something nastier.

And then, there are those who would blame the little guy for not having the riches the big guy has. Thankfully, Microsoft has shown it's not quite that hard-hearted yet.

CountMike said:

As far as I can see, us, "the little guys" were not a target as typically we don't have much to loose, not nearly as much as organizations anyway. Some offline backup of important stuff would make treats like that just annoying. If if they hit me right now I'd be back in business in half an hour at most.

Speak for yourself, Count. :) My daughter was hit the very first day. I think it may have been something else, but it was, from all information, Ransomware of some sort.

She's going to get a lesson in security, probably tomorrow, since today is Mother's Day.

Wynona said:

Speak for yourself, Count. :) My daughter was hit the very first day. I think it may have been something else, but it was, from all information, Ransomware of some sort.

She's going to get a lesson in security, probably tomorrow, since today is Mother's Day.

A lesson in proper backup too I hope.

MS had an opportunity to gather some Good Will by releasing the patch for older, unsupported systems, and they would have been stupid not to take the opportunity.

CountMike said:

A lesson in proper backup too I hope.

Ummm, I do believe proper backup would be included in security. :)

Mystere said:

While it's true that they have to produce the patch anyways for their extended maintenance customers, it has more to do with justification.

If they just said "Well, we have to create the patches for people that are paying for support anyways, let's just release them all for free", then those customers would feel ripped off, and would probably stop paying. If nobody was paying, then they wouldn't have the money to produce the patches. So it's a vicious cycle. They need to keep the patches for their paying customers or they would have no reason to pay, and thus the support would fall apart.

The "vicious cycle" would be repeated reinfections from pockets of unpatched systems - all old Windows versions still connected - if Microsoft did not make the patches available to legacy Windows versions too. As I said in post#5 of this thread:

It's not so much a goodwill gesture, but an essential measure to stop the spread of this exploit. By comparison, you can't just kill off malaria in South and Central America and Africa - the rest of the tropics need to be rid of it too.

Forward thinking - there will be copycat exploits, with loopholes plugged by the malchicks, it's not over yet.

Windows Update Catalog and do a search for kb4012212
Is the 'medicine' for un-patched XP and W7 machines. I just did it on y old HP laptop with XP.