Met Police 'like a fish swimming in a pool of sharks' with 18,000 computers still on XP

Conservative Party raises concerns over Metropolitan Police's lack of speed in updating operating systems

More than 18,000 Metropolitan Police computers are still running Windows XP, according to Conservative members of the Greater London Authority (GLA).

Figures published by the GLA Conservatives, obtained from the Mayor of London's office, state that the Metropolitan Police still has 18,293 devices on the unsupported XP operating system (OS), with just eight machines running the most recent Windows 10 OS.

The number of public sector machines still running Windows XP, which Microsoft stopped supporting in 2014, hit the headlines during the global WannaCry attack in May when Microsoft went against its protocol and released an XP patch.

The GLA Conservatives have now moved to highlight the number of Metropolitan Police computers still running XP, with just 14,450 devices running the still-supported Windows 8.

London Assembly member Steve O'Connell, who requested the information from London mayor Sadiq Khan, said: "The recent cyber-attacks on Parliament and the NHS show what a serious matter this is.

"The Met is working towards upgrading its software but in its current state it's like a fish swimming in a pool of sharks.

"It is vital the Met is given the resources to step up its upgrade timeline before we see another cyber-attack with nationwide security implications."

A second report, published by market watcher Spiceworks, found that 52 per cent of businesses worldwide are still running at least one machine on Windows XP.

It claimed that XP is installed on 14 per cent of business computers globally, with IT professionals citing budget and time constraints as the main reasons for not upgrading.

Despite the increasing coverage of cybersecurity in mainstream media, less than half (45 per cent) of businesses surveyed said they were concerned that their outdated OS made them more susceptible to cyberattacks.