US Department of Defense now fully armed with Windows 10
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After missing their January deadline, the US Defense Department has announced that they have completed their transition to Windows 10 by the end of their second deadline, March 31st.
The feat was announced by Acting DOD CIO Essye Miller during an industry day in National Harbor, MD.
“For the most part, with the exception of a couple [offices], we are there,” Miller said.
“We’ll spend sometime this morning with the deputy secretary just congratulating folks for their hard work,” she added. “It’s been a long, long, long journey.”
The move was driven by the need to harden the US military against cyber attacks and also to enable future missions. Windows 10’s security features would allow software patches to install faster, making it less obtrusive while making networks safer.
The move has seen some departments sacrifice some older PCs to enable them to meet their mandate, and any PCs unable to be upgraded by the deadline were quarantined and are denied access to the network.
“Windows 10 obviously postures us on a security operating environment and that’s what we want,” noted Miller.
The migration puts the Department of Defense ahead of most large enterprises, with recent network traffic analysis suggesting only 32% of enterprise PCs are running Microsoft’s latest operating system.
