Windows Server 2008 End of Life — Ways to Keep Using It Safely
… signing up for the service. Any fix that 0Patch supplies is not in the form of a traditional patch, which replaces an entire changed file or application on the hard drive, but is a memory resident “micropatch” and is applied on the fly.
“0patch Agent is designed to inject a dynamic load library (DLL) into each running process so that it can then apply and un-apply micropatches in that process,” 0Patch explains on its website. “While there are some processes that don’t let themselves get injected this way, most processes will spend an additional 600-700 KB of memory each for hosting that DLL. On a typical Windows 10 system with [about] 100 running processes this means a memory consumption of 60-70 MB.”
When asked if 0Patch’s system presents a new security worry for users, Kolsek replied: “While we’re trying hard to avoid that and utilize 20-plus years of experience in finding vulnerabilities, it’s almost sure that there are vulnerabilities in our product, as are there in any other software product. We can also micropatch our own product, so fixing can be fast and deployment of the fix instant and unobtrusive for the user.”
Cloud-Based Security Solutions for Windows Server 8 Service
For those unwilling to pay for Microsoft support or to rely on a third party’s unique solution for continued security updates following Windows Server 2008 end of life, the only solutions involve moving to the cloud.
The easiest solution here is probably Microsoft, which will supply free security updates for three years to organizations that move their Windows Server 2008 workloads to its Azure cloud to run as a VM or managed instance.
A little more complex, but perhaps a more complete, long-term solution is being offered by Amazon Web Services with its End-of-Support Migration Program for Windows Server. With this program, users upload their unsupported workloads to the cloud and upgrade to a supported version of Windows Server in the process, using a compatibility layer to do things like redirecting APIs that have changed.
AWS says that the EMP technology is offered without cost, although users will have to pay a fee to have applications assessed and repackaged.
Other than these solutions, IT shops can face the final Windows Server 2008 end of life by upgrading to a newer version on their own, or they can continue to ride bareback and hope any security holes that surface don’t lead to an attack by the black hats.
That last option is not recommended. As Rocky used to say to Bullwinkle, “That trick never works.”
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