A little under a year from now, on Oct. 14, 2025, Windows 10 faces an expiration date.

That’s when Microsoft has said it will officially cut off support for the operating system in favor of its successor, Windows 11. Just one problem—the vast majority of enterprises haven’t upgraded, even as the clock keeps ticking.

Recent data from Lansweeper shows Windows 11 adoption has sped up dramatically, but has yet to gain even a full quarter of the Windows market. Since September 2023, Windows 11’s share has grown from 8% to 23%, while Windows 10’s share has dropped from 81% to 68%.

There are only a handful of ways for enterprises to still gain critical security updates after Microsoft deprecates Windows 10. One of them is the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC), which Lansweeper’s data shows just 3.5% of enterprises are using. Another is Extended Service Updates (ESU), in which customers pay for continued security fixes, but which is quite expensive at $61 per device in the first year and rising to $244 by year three.

Michael Cherry, the Windows analyst at IT information and advisory service Directions on Microsoft, told IT Brew some organizations may be playing a risky game of chicken, hoping that the tech giant grants a stay of execution to the old OS.

Read the rest here.—TM

Keep going, right on down the line.

As the Southeast struggles to fix the damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the damage to the tech supply-chain may have ramifications for weeks.

Nandy Vaisman, VP of operations and CISO at Vim, told IT Brew that he believes the full extent of the damage is still unknown.

“We haven’t realized what exactly went on,” Vaisman said. “I saw some footage from things that happened in the Tampa Bay area—I wonder, when it cools down, what we’ll see and what the actual impact is.”

See right through you. Helene specifically will have an effect on the tech industry. The storm slammed North Carolina, dumping rain in the Blue Ridge Mountains—an important locale for tech. Quartz mined in the region is used for semiconductor chips, and the disruption to the supply chain for these vital components threatens Silicon Valley and the sector at large.

Mines run by Sibelco and The Quartz Corp near the town of Spruce Pine have shut down. Seaver Wang, Breakthrough Institute climate and energy program co-director, told CNN that the importance of the mines can’t be understated.

Keep reading here.—EH

Mastercard is dropping billions on AI-powered cybersecurity. In September, the global payments firm announced it had reached an agreement to buy Recorded Future, a threat intel provider that has been among the most notable cybersecurity companies betting on generative AI.

The deal will see Mastercard acquire Recorded Future from private equity firm Insight Partners for $2.65 billion, according to a company announcement. Recorded Future co-founder and CEO Christopher Ahlberg wrote in a separate post that instead of being absorbed into Mastercard’s operations, the firm will continue to operate as an “independent subsidiary.”

“The worlds between cyber and fraud are all becoming grayed out, and there’s the space between it,” Johan Gerber, Mastercard’s EVP and head of security solutions, told IT Brew.

Recorded Future’s website claims the company has clients in 75 countries, and it reportedly first launched features integrating OpenAI’s GPT model in early 2023. The deal with Mastercard is expected to close in Q1 2025, according to the announcement.

Read more here.—TM