Microsoft Takes Pity On Windows XP Users And Fixes A Big Scary Bug For Them
Security researchers FireEye warned the public about the bug last week saying that hackers were using it to break into computers, particularly in the defense industry, financial services industry, government and at energy companies.
Microsoft warned people about the bug, too, and reminded everyone that it would not fix it for XP users, because Microsoft had officially stopped support for XP last month (except for the companies that are individually paying Microsoft millions of dollars to keep fixing problems with XP).
On Monday it said it wasn't going to fix the bug for XP users:
"Microsoft no longer provides security updates for the Windows XP operating system and encourages upgrading to a modern operating system like Windows 8."
But the bug wasn't in XP, it was in Internet Explorer. Microsoft was fixing the problem, it just didn't plan to send that fix to XP users.
So the U.S. government Department of Homeland security issued a warning, too, suggesting that Windows XP users ditch Internet Explorer and use another browser instead.
With millions of XP users still out there, particularly in the business world, Microsoft changed its mind on Thursday and did the right thing, sending the fix to XP users, too.
But Microsoft isn't promising to fix anything else for XP users. As Microsoft security exec Adrienne Hall said in a blog post:
"Just because this update is out now doesn't mean you should stop thinking about getting off Windows XP and moving to a newer version of Windows and the latest version of Internet Explorer."
If you use Windows, including XP, you should see an update from Microsoft that contains this fix. It would be wise to install it.