Invisible risk to business – Outdated Computers, Upgrade Right Away !
Would you drive a car that was way past its maintenance cycle? If your safety and security are dear to you, you obviously wouldn’t. The same logic applies to obsolete computers as they end up posing a major threat to your organization. The threat cannot be contained either; one aging hardware and software on even a single computer would put every other computer on your network at risk.
We are all very well-versed with security breaches that have plagued different devices across the world, PCs being the most vulnerable of them all. In such scenarios, obsolete PCs are a big NO. While we are at this, let’s also run you through the different aspects of outdated computers you need to know:
Increased Costs
Delaying technological upgradation in your organisation will only end up in increased costs. And as a business owner, that’s the last thing you want. Older technology is much less energy-efficient and requires a lot more power than newer technology. Also, older systems have higher failure rates than their newer counterparts. Likewise, the cost of fixing and repairing these old systems is way higher (due to non availability of parts) for systems that are more than four years old.
Decreased Productivity
If your systems are sluggish, you can’t blame your staff for decreasing productivity. Older systems are slower and crash more often, hampering productivity in your organisation. Updated technology enables your employees to be far more efficient, and they would be able to store and organize data in a much better way. And as per a latest survey – around 53% of employees feel that they would be able to perform better if their workplace had updated technology.
Security
This is one of the most important reasons why you need to upgrade your systems right away. Most companies update their software often with the hope that their systems will be safe from cyber-attacks. But sadly, that’s not how it works – most software updates don’t support older systems. This also means that your efforts of providing increased security to your organization clearly go down the drain.
Compliance Requirements
Certain industries have strict compliance requirements. And if your organization falls under one of these, you need to constantly upgrade your systems to meet the requirements of standards such as HIPAA. In case your technology is not up-to-the-mark, you may face penalties in the form of fees. Not meeting these standards that are laid out can also make your organization more susceptible to data breaches and hacks.
Lack of Flexibility
Old technology cannot perform like new technology, and this drawback limits the flexibility of your business. With improved tech, your firm gains an edge over other organizations while helping you work in different areas such as data analysis, which forms the base of critical decision making. With the new and updated software, you can also gauge the performance of your employees as well as the overall organization in a much better way.
How Susceptible are Your Outdated PCs?
Reports state that many companies across the world are currently operating on outdated computer systems. For this particular analysis, a sample of 35,000 companies was taken into consideration, and the results of this analysis were shocking.
Among the sample companies, over 2000 companies ran more than 50% of their computers on outdated versions of operating systems. Over 8500 firms were functioning on an obsolete version of internet browsers. While these reflected the gaps in the private sector, the government sector technology numbers aren’t promising either. Around 25% of government sector computers were running on outdated operating systems.
The effect can be seen when you consider WannaCry ransomware, which affected more than 300,000 computers across the world. Of the sample size, 20% of the computers fell prey to the WannaCry ransomware. The reason was simple – they were using Windows Vista or XP, both of which did not have a patch available. Both these outdated operating systems are no longer officially supported by Windows either.
These results are only from a sample size of 35,000 companies; the actual number runs into thousands across the world. No wonder the number of hacking incidents and cyber crimes are on the rise; organizations are not really taking this threat seriously. Some examples of organisations that have faced revenue losses due to outdated technology:
Summing Up
With the risks that we have listed and the examples of losses organizations faced due to outdated systems, we hope to have effectively conveyed the gravity of the issue. In today’s fast-paced world, keeping track of the number of cyberattacks is practically impossible. On your end, the only thing that you can do to protect the systems, data, and integrity of your organization is to frequently revamp and update the technology. It will save you a lot of expenses and losses in case of any mishaps. Staying prepared is the best way out, always.