Sooner or later, in the ICT field, you will encounter the term 'End-of-Life' (EoL), and you might wonder what it means and whether you need to take action.
An EoL status of software or an operating system means that the developer/manufacturer stops supporting the product. No more updates, patches, or technical support will be provided for that specific version of the software or operating system.
The most important consequence of this is that vulnerabilities found after reaching the EoL status will not be patched. Systems that continue to use an EoL operating system (or EoL software) after the EoL date are therefore potentially vulnerable to attacks.
In the very short term, the likelihood of finding a vulnerability might not be very high, but as more time passes and more people use outdated software/operating systems, the greater the chance that malicious parties will find a vulnerability and use it to attack your infrastructure.
Therefore, we strongly recommend upgrading software and operating systems that reach End-of-Life status to a newer version, for example, operating system version X to version Y.