Romania needs to invest in public administration IT systems

The Government is preparing an investment plan in upgrading the IT infrastructure in public administration. This is necessary as the support for the Windows XP operating system, which runs on the states’ computers, has ceased and cyber-attacks take place daily, reads a Government’s confidential document obtained by Profit.ro. The investment plan will be urgently carried out nationwide, in IT critical areas, through budget allocations and reallocations. In 2009, the Government bought for all ministries and other public institutions over 153,000 computers and almost 10,000 servers. Over 88% of the computers had Windows XP licenses on them, which were leased for three years. In 2012, when the leasing agreement for the licenses expired, the state had the option to renew it for another three years or to buy the licenses. The Government decided to buy. The authorities argued at the time that they acquired these licenses, because the hardware infrastructure existing at that time could not support newer versions of operating systems. However, in April last year, the support for the Windows XP operating system ceased. Microsoft announced then that the assistance and the updates for Windows XP were not available anymore and told their clients not to leave their computers unprotected. State’s computers thus remained without protection in the face of daily cyber-attacks. editor@romania-insider.com