Cyber Security – It’s your choice – Delay Windows and Device Updates or Put Your Business at Risk!

The most vulnerable and least secure point in your network is your device. It is the easiest avenue for cyber criminals, nation-state actors, and organized crime to steal your money, your intellectual property and your identity. The majority of these attacks go undetected and unreported, but we all know where they start. Cyber criminals compromise your device and steal your credentials.

Normally as vulnerabilities are discovered, software companies are notified and given time to create patches or updates to prevent the creation of exploits and prevent new avenues of attack. As devices and operating systems become more complex, it is increasingly difficult to create fixes before the news gets out. Vulnerabilities discovered in hardware take even longer to correct since the update to the design of the silicon needs to go through testing and certification before it goes to manufacturing and makes its way to hardware OEMs and into devices.

Microsoft’s answer to the threat of increased security risks in operating systems is that there will be no new versions of the Windows operating system – Going forward Microsoft is moving towards Windows as a Service and Windows 10 will only need to receive security and feature updates to stay current inside an ongoing 18-month release cycle. This strategic decision has enabled Microsoft to increase the cadence of security updates and will prevent large disruptive update installation projects from delaying future deployments due to compatibility and infrastructure changes.

Once Windows 10 is fully implemented, Microsoft wants System Integrators to help customers plan and manage twice-yearly updates to Windows 10 and Office 365. Support for these updates will only last 18 months. Organizations that fall out of the standard support cycle could be limited to receiving updates and security patches.

Intel has also made a commitment to security and is increasing the speed at which they are bringing devices to market while working with OEMs to make devices more secure. Each device iteration comes with a stronger security posture than the last.  In 2017, Intel’s Kaby Lake devices used 7^th Generation Core processors – previous hardware iterations followed a 2-year cycle but now 8^th Generation Coffee Lake is already in the market. And we are already hearing about 9^th Generation Cannon Lake and Ice Lake. Intel’s Authenticate solution, for example, offers hardware-based multifactor security and has been available since 7^th Generation.

Even as business security awareness increases, the CIO can’t protect their organization unless they actually deploy Windows 10 on new Intel devices and take advantage of the enhanced security features. Sogeti’s SMART Workspace as a Service is already aligned with Microsoft and Intel to help customers with planning, deployment and ongoing management allowing organizations to stay aligned with the faster update cycle and increased security model.

For more information on Sogeti Smart Workspace, visit our website.