This Thursday, September 30 at 4:01 pm sharp, owners of smartphones, tablets and even certain products such as computers, game consoles and smart TVs prior to 2017 will have to say goodbye to the Internet and the connected world.
The failure of a digital security certificate that will automatically lock all devices that were sold before January 2017, reports computer security researcher Scott Helme in his blog.
The man thus warns that almost a third of the Android smartphones or tablets in circulation are likely to be affected by this problem. The same quack on the iPhone and iPad side that wouldn’t have gone through iOS10 (at least), while consoles like the PS4 or even a Wii U that wouldn’t have been updated since 2017, for example, could be left stranded. At the same time, connected TVs that have never been updated for four years or even PCs or Macs that have not passed the milestone of Windows XP (with Service Pack 2) or MacOS 10.12.0 will find themselves’ unable to go back to The Web.
Necessary updates
Don’t panic though, if you’ve updated your product since then the protocol won’t stop you from browsing the web. However, researcher Scott Helme warns that several hundred thousand phones, tablets and consoles will be affected, as many users do not think about updating their devices. Also, some devices that are considered too old may not be upgradeable and should therefore be banned from the World Wide Web.
The last resort for certain devices is to use Firefox as your Internet browser, as it does not use the same security certificate protocol. Hence, Firefox would be a way to fix this problem, at least for PC and Mac owners.
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