A year ago last Fall, I predicted the end of the world was near. I was on a Windows XP migration mission to seek and destroy legacy XP assets. My pillar message was the security threat. My secondary messages focused on productivity, getting to modern, economic incentives and compliance matters. I used a few examples from the field. One of my “tales from the trenches” concerned Home Depot. As you might know by now, earlier this week, Home Depot reported a massive security breach exposing over 70 million customer payment cards to hackers. In the Kerbs report, please pay close attention to the Windows XP conversation.
I told you so. The picture I have taken reflects a late Saturday night last Fall when I was running an unexpected errand. The location is the Home Depot store in Poulsbo, Washington. I had to purchase some quick dry concrete for my son’s Eagle Scout project - he was building a bird blind to view coastal fowl. At check out, I snapped this pic and was confronted by the lady in the background. After a brief chat, she understood I was trying to document Windows XP installations. I told her there was no way that Home Depot could meet the April 8th deadline for Windows XP end-of-support. We parted ways as friends.
Fast forward the movie nearly a year. Home Depot has been hacked. Top management better be floating resumes around LinkedIn if you know what I mean – join former Target execs LOL.
What’s sad is that (a) this didn’t have to happen and (b) the IT Pros who attended my Windows XP Migration Madness workshops (44 events in 2013 sponsored by Lenovo) did not follow my advice and contact Home Depot to help solve this problem. A missed opportunity.
