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HACKERS: Kenya’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) without elaborate firewalls to protect data from hackers face hard times ahead, after Microsoft withdrew its support for the popular Windows 7 operating system (OS).

The end of Windows 7 has coincided with a warning from Kaspersky security, of the existence of thousands of notifications of malware attacks to banks in sub-Saharan Africa by hackers from the Silence group—Russian hackers.  

The US global technology firm said it ceased offering security updates, non-security quick-fix engineering updates, free or paid assisted support options and online technical content for the OS on Tuesday.

Windows 7 is preferred by most Kenyan SMEs, who use it to run their enterprise programmes.

Edwin Kariuki, Country Manager, Continuity East Africa at technology firm Internet Solutions said in days to come, SMEs will be exposed to insecurity vulnerability because vendors will no longer do patching. 

Patching is a technology terminology referring to set of changes to a computer programme or its supporting data designed to update, fix, or improve it.

 Computers running Windows 7 will still function after January 14, but they will become less and less secure.  After this date, only those willing to pay for the extended updates will continue to receive patches and security fixes.

Microsoft is urging people or organisations to move to Windows 10, a newer OS system.

However, Microsoft has agreed to extend a helping, if not cheap, hand to  businesses of all sizes who will now be able to pay for extended security updates.