Vladimir Putin ‘still uses obsolete Windows XP’ despite hacking risk

Russian agents have been accused of throughout the world hacking operations, but anyone at the Kremlin has evidently neglected to inform Vladimir Putin of the value of cyber-stability.

Putin, 67, seems to have the obsolete Microsoft Windows XP running program set up on computers in his place of work at the Kremlin and at his official Novo-Ogaryovo residence in the vicinity of Moscow, in accordance to photographs introduced by his press assistance.

The two computers have the Kremlin towers established as their desktop backgrounds.

Microsoft stopped releasing common safety updates for Windows XP and Place of work 2003 in April 2014. Nonetheless, it appears that Russian govt rules have prevented Putin from updating to the much more latest Microsoft 10.

The US tech company warns on its site that desktops jogging Home windows XP are “vulnerable to safety challenges and viruses”.

Home windows XP, released in 2001, was the very last Microsoft working process provided the eco-friendly light for use on formal Russian governing administration computers, the Open up Media web site described, citing defence ministry paperwork. The much more modern Home windows 10 is only approved for products that do not consist of point out techniques – a little something that would not feel to utilize to Putin’s computers.

Open Media – an opposition-friendly, impartial Russian information internet site – claimed that Mikhail Klimaryov, the head of Russia’s unbiased World-wide-web Safety Modern society, experienced confirmed that Putin’s desktops ended up functioning Windows XP in the photos.

Moscow is little by little phasing out Microsoft and Google on govt pcs in favour of Russia’s Astra Linux operating process software and domestic browsers these types of as Yandex.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, did not comment when requested why Putin continues to use an antiquated Microsoft operating technique.

It’s unclear how good a threat Putin’s use of Windows XP poses to Kremlin cyber stability: the ex-KGB officer is reported to be an irregular person of the net, which he has previously referred to as a “CIA project”. The predecessor of the world wide web was the Arpanet, which was launched by the US Section of Defense.

Russia is increasingly in search of to create regulate about online technological know-how. The Kremlin lately banned the sale of smartphones without the need of Russian-made apps, although Putin in February approved a regulation supplying Moscow the electricity to “disconnect” the place from the international world wide web.