Contact First Name, Last Name
CLIENT COMPANY NAME
The purpose of this letter is to confirm, in writing, your acknowledgement of the presence of servers and computers (Annex A) running an unsupported version of the Microsoft Windows operating system on your infrastructure and that you are also aware of the associated risks.
Every version of the Microsoft Windows operating system has a lifecycle. The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it’s no longer supported by Microsoft. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 reached their end of life on January 14th, 2020. All previous versions of Windows have already reached their end of life.
Once an operating system has reached its end of life, Microsoft will no longer offer support and will no longer issue any updates, including critical security updates, for the operating system. Continuing to run operating systems that are past their end of life on your infrastructure is a significant security risk. Computers running these end of life operating systems will not be protected against malware and attackers using newly discovered vulnerabilities. Once compromised, these computers can be used to attack the rest of the infrastructure which can cause significant downtime, data leaks and even data loss.
In addition to the huge security risk that running an end of life operating system poses, most software vendors will stop supporting their applications on these operating systems as well, which means your third-party software could potentially not function properly or not be eligible for any future upgrades or updates.
We therefore highly recommend you to upgrade the operating system of these computers, or replace them outright, before the end of life dates. Even a single computer running an unsupported OS could be used to gain access to your entire network or cause additional complications and restrictions with your existing software.
MSP is a Microsoft Partner, which allows us to get support from Microsoft when we are confronted with an issue that we have not seen before or that we do not know how to resolve. This allows us to resolve any issue related to a Microsoft Windows operating system within a reasonable timeframe. Microsoft will not offer us any support in the case of an end-of-life operating system which reduces our ability to resolve all issues in a timely fashion.
For MSP to continue offering support, although limited, for your infrastructure we request that you sign and return this document confirming that MSP will not be held responsible for any losses relating to running unsupported operating systems as you understand this exposes you to an elevated risk to cybersecurity dangers, such as malicious attacks or electronic data loss. Additionally, all issues arising from running an unsupported operating system will not be included in our managed service agreement and will be billed separately hourly.
Thank you,
____________________________ ________________________________
MSP, Account Manager Name Client, Title
Simon is the President of S3 Technologies, a leading Canadian MSP he co-founded in 2003. He built and scaled the vCIO team which eventually lead to him co-founding Propel Your MSP in 2018 to help MSPs with their vCIO services.
