The National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC) urges organizations to upgrade to Windows 11 before the deadline for Windows 10 stop support, which will arrive in October this year.

In one of its blog posts, the cybersecurity agency pointed out that users who do not choose to upgrade will face significant security risks.

In addition to the lack of specialized technical support, outdated operating systems are also very likely to become targets of cybercriminals. The NCSC said this risk was not worth taking at all.

Take the IE 6-11 vulnerability that appears after Windows XP ends with support as an example to illustrate the problem.

The organization has a year to update devices and hardware to complete the transition before Windows 10 is officially out. Although Windows 11 has been released for nearly four years, there are still a large number of users that have not been migrated yet.

"While Windows 10 has been released for more than a decade, it is still widely used by enterprises. Not upgrading is like borrowing at high interest rates and may be forced to repay in the future," Ollie Whitehouse, chief technology officer of NCSC.

“NCSC strongly calls on organizations that have not yet moved to more modern systems to act as soon as possible to address security vulnerabilities in devices and improve overall network resilience. As highlighted in Cyber Essentials , it is crucial to keep the software in a supported state.”

Why is the pace of migration to Windows 11 so slow?

One reason why an enterprise hasn't upgraded to Windows 11 may be the hardware configuration it needs.

Requirements such as TPM 2.0, UEFI, and support for Secure Boot mean that a more modern laptop may need to be replaced, which may bring some cost pressure in the short term.

But in the long run, the losses caused by a cybersecurity incident may be even more serious.

As part of its guidance, NCSC has also released an update configuration package for Microsoft Windows, and includes some Group Policy settings for easy deployment.

These requirements have also raised concerns that this could lead to a global surge in electronic waste and millions of devices are discarded.

According to Canalys' research, as many as 240 million PCs may be eliminated worldwide due to the shift to Windows 11.

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