On July 13, 2010 Microsoft ended its support of Windows 2000-based systems. This week, Gartner Analyst Neil MacDonald detailed the options available to organizations who may still be using Windows 2000:
- Migrate to a newer and supported operating system
- Pay Microsoft for a Custom Support Agreement (CSA), running $50,000 per quarter
- Pay Microsoft for Custom Support Essentials (CSE), to receive critical security fixes
- Continue using Windows 2000-based systems without new patches
For many organizations, the first three options are time intensive and extremely expensive, but they feel concerned about running legacy systems without ongoing security patching. If your organization feels the need to continue to run Windows 2000, application whitelisting, such as our CoreTrace BOUNCER solution, may be exactly what your company needs.
For most of these systems application whitelisting, which can lock down the system and explicitly define what applications are allowed to run, is an ideal approach toward protecting against new malware and attacks. In particular, a solution like BOUNCER, provides the following advantages for protecting these systems.
- Explicitly define what is allowed to run — Most of these systems are running in a known state with very little need to run any new applications
- Prevent all unknown applications from running — New vulnerabilities aren’t a problem any longer as no new malware will be able to run, no matter what the vulnerability.
- Eliminate the need for patching and signature updates — These systems are protected without the need for any new antivirus signatures or custom security fixes through a costly service agreement with Microsoft
- Implement a unified endpoint security approach that protects both legacy and modern operating systems — BOUNCER is able to implement and enforce your security policy whether the system is Windows 2000 or Windows 7.
Neil MacDonald specifically calls out application whitelisting as an important component of protecting these systems:
“Whitelist the applications that are allowed to execute on the Windows 2000-based system, desktop or server. If malware somehow makes it on to the Windows 2000 system, another way to thwart attacks is to prevent unauthorized code from executing using a whitelisting approach (only run applications that have been preconfigured on a whitelist).”
We wholeheartedly agree.