Despite Microsoft announcing its official End of Life on April 8th 2014, many businesses still use Windows XP workstations and point of sale terminals. Who can blame them? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it right? Wrong…
Since its release in 2001, Microsoft issued over 700 updates, many of which were identified as critical to its security. While the technology space has changed incredibly since April of 2914, Microsoft has issued 0 updates – widening existing holes in data integrity.
As of yesterday, January 1, 2017 merchants no longer have the ability to connect securely through an SSL certificate using the SHA-1 security algorithm.
What does this mean?
It means that if you are processing credit cards through a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating system, you can’t kick the can down the road anymore. Entities hosting secure transactions are upgrading to a new algorithm – SHA-2 – resulting in a merchant’s inability to process credit cards on their point of sale device.
What can you do?
While major players like Heartland aren’t completely pulling the plug on SHA-1 immediately, it is imminent – think weeks not months. It’s time to upgrade your software.
Isn’t that expensive? It might be.
I can help – reach out here on LinkedIn or give me a call and I can help you put a plan in place to make this migration as easy as possible. Heartland has business financing programs available and backup processing systems so your business can keep on track for 2017 and beyond.
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