April 8 marks the deadline for the U.S. government to complete secure operating systems installations to federal computers. However as the date fast approaches, roughly 10 percent of the several million federally used computers will still be running with the outdated system.

According to the Washington Post, Microsoft's free support for Windows XP will expire, which has created a surge of federal officials rushing to update the systems, despite knowing about this necessary procedure for more than six years.

The issue is the remaining federal computers without the software upgrades will become more vulnerable to cyberattacks from hackers.

The Post reported that numerous hackers have known about Windows XP's "end-of-life" date and have been collecting "vulnerabilities" in the form of skeleton keys, which can provide them remote access into the government's system.

Security experts said they believe even with 90 percent of the federal computers updated, the hackers, who would theoretically already have access through the remaining unguarded 10 percent, could mine their way through the network.

The possibility of espionage and cyberattacks such as disabling infrastructure and other critical grids pose an urgent problem and threat, Richard Spires, former Department of Homeland Security chief information officer told the Post.

"Once XP goes out of support and is no longer patched, you've just raised the vulnerability significantly on the whole Windows platform in your organization if you haven't moved off XP," Spires said.

Although thousands of government computers containing classified military and diplomatic information, which are highly sensitive, already have strong defense guards, there is still a possibility hackers can reach into them.

Experts also said that Microsoft declined the government's plea to extend the deadline but offered a "custom support agreement" for a set of new fees, which will most likely fall short of the current system that is free to most XP users.

The Window's support Microsoft offered included regular security patches whenever a virus or cyberattack trying to exploit any operating system weaknesses occurred.

One senior State Department official told the Post under anonymity that a few agencies declined to hire custom support agreements such as the one Microsoft offered because the expense was unnecessary.

"For all the money we collectively give Microsoft, they were not too receptive to extending the deadline," the senior official said. "There was some grumbling that they were not willing to extend."

However, Microsoft Chief Security Officer Mark Williams told the Post in an email, there is not substantial risk to the federal computer systems.

"Because we are tightly working with out customers, and because of the types of systems that have yet to make the move off XP, we do not feel there is a substantially greater risk for the federal government on April 9 than there is on April 7," Williams said. "That being said, at the end of the day, it's important to remember that the most safe system is a modern one."