Support for Windows XP is going to end in next 20 days, and the problems has already started arising. According to the latest statistics from Net Applications, the old operating system has a market share close to 30%, so the risk of an invasion of malware is very high.

According to the Avast COO Ondrej Vlcek, “Abandoning Windows XP is a big mistake”, he continued “[…] especially since Microsoft has not been very successful in transitioning XP users to newer systems”.

The telemetry data shows 23.6% of the 211 million users of Avast still use Windows XP, while 21.5% are using Internet Explorer 8, the latest version of IE for Windows XP by the Redmond developers. For Windows XP users, there is a six times more probability of being attacked than Windows 7 users.

Microsoft has recently announced that the technical support will no longer be available for Windows XP as of April 8, 12014. Therefore, the hunt outdated computers will begin from April 8, 2014 who see to exploit the vulnerability to steal sensitive information such as passwords, credit card details.

The abandonment of Windows XP from Microsoft will have negative consequences for all. Tens of millions of PCs running Windows XP are connected to the internet, these will become an easy target for hackers who will use them as a “bridge” to attack another computer. It will not only affect home PCs, but also business systems, because 95% of ATMs around the world are still running Windows XP. Many doctors still use Windows XP to keep confidential information of patients. Most of the shopping malls still run specifically designed version of Windows XP.

However, Avast support Windows XP for three more years. Avast COO mentioned in the blog post.

Avast is devoted to protecting the PC ecosystem by not only supporting Windows XP for at least the next three years, but also by creating protection modules and detections specifically designed to cover Windows XP vulnerabilities and other security problems.

You can check out other statistics in the infographic below.