PowerTerm End-of-Life: Why Organizations Must Act Now – And Why the December 10 Webinar Is Critical

In March 2025, Ericom PowerTerm, a terminal emulator still used by thousands of organizations to access mainframes, IBM i systems, Unix hosts, VMS machines, and other mission-critical environments, officially entered End-of-Life (EOL). 

For decades, PowerTerm provided a familiar, predictable interface to critical back-end systems. But with the EOL announcement, that predictability is gone. What was once a stable and trusted tool is now a growing operational, security, and compliance liability.

For IT leaders, architects, and security professionals managing host-access estates, this is the moment where inaction has real, measurable consequences. That’s why Flynet is hosting a briefing webinar on December 10, 2025 (16:00 GMT / 11am EST), to provide clarity, risk insight and a responsible migration path for PowerTerm customers. 

This article breaks down why this matters, what’s at stake, and what the webinar will deliver.

What Changed: PowerTerm’s 2025 EOL Triggered a Hard Stop

Ericom’s announcement marked a decisive end to the product’s lifecycle.
According to the official PowerTerm EOL guidance, after March 2025:

• No further security patches will be released
• No bug fixes or code changes will be provided
• Only reduced “best effort” support remains until June 30, 2027
• There will be no fixes for OS, TLS, identity management, or infrastructure compatibility issues
• Any new vulnerabilities will remain permanently unpatched.

In practical terms, PowerTeam is now frozen in time. Any newly discovered vulnerability will remain permanently unpatched. Any incompatibility caused by OS updates, TLS changes, identity-management upgrades, or infrastructure modernization will become the customer’s problem, not Ericom’s.

For an application that touches mission-critical host systems, this is a profound and risky change.

Security Risk: Unsupported Software is an Attacker’s Dream

In a threat landscape defined by accelerating exploits, supply-chain attacks, and zero-day vulnerabilities, unsupported software sits at the centre of every attacker’s preferred strategy. Legacy terminal emulators are no exception.

PowerTerm’s age, architecture, and update history create a difficult reality:

• Unpatched vulnerabilities become permanent vulnerabilities.
• Legacy encryption methods often remain in place because upgrading them requires code changes that will never arrive.
• Older emulators struggle to align with modern cyber requirements such as Zero Trust, privileged-access controls, and session auditability.

Cybersecurity analysts consistently highlight unsupported software as low-hanging fruit. In recent high-profile breaches across finance, government, and healthcare, attackers have leveraged outdated components sitting deep inside host-access workflows.

Terminal emulators — because they are the “front door” to the finance, logistics, tax, pensions, and insurance systems — are prime targets. When that front door cannot be secured or updated, it becomes a structural organizational risk.

Compliance: A Growing Source of Audit Failure

Regulatory environments across the world have tightened significantly since PowerTerm was architected. Many organizations now operate under frameworks such as:

• DORA (EU Digital Operational Resilience Act)
• NYCRR Part 500
• HIPAA & HITECH
• NERC / FERC
• UK PRA / FCA guidelines
• US Federal MFA mandates

A terminal emulator that:

• cannot be patched
• does not support modern encryption standards, and
• provides no centralised audit trail

… quickly becomes a point of non-compliance.

For organizations undergoing annual audits, penetration testing, SOC 2 assessments, cyber insurance renewals, or regulatory reviews, continuing to operate unsupported host-access software presents a material challenge. Many auditors will classify this as an urgent remediation requirement.

Waiting until an audit forces a migration is almost always more expensive, more disruptive, and more politically difficult than acting proactively.

Operational Drag and Technical Debt

Even when security is not the immediate driver, the operational burden should not be ignored.

Legacy emulators were designed for a very different computing context, one without browser-based access, mobile access, SSO, cloud identity, Zero Trust, or multi-factor authentication. They were designed when “install a client on every workstation” was the norm.

Today’s IT environments are hybrid, fast-moving, and identity-centric. A tool that cannot evolve with that environment can actively slow down or block:

• OS upgrades
• Enterprise-wide identity changes
• Remote-access policies
• Cloud migrations
• Virtual desktop platforms
• Multi-platform device environments

Technical debt is often invisible until a tool at the core of daily operations becomes a bottleneck, preventing systems from moving forward.

Why the December 10 Webinar Matters

Flynet’s briefing is built as a strategic guide designed to help organizations understand the implications of PowerTerm’s EOL and what a responsible, low-risk migration looks like.

Over the session, attendees will learn:

1. The full PowerTerm EOL timeline and its implications
   Including the end of feature development, halting of security patches, and the final cut-off for reduced support in 2027.

2. The real security & compliance exposures
   Based on real-world risk patterns, audit requirements, and the analysis gap between PowerTerm capabilities and modern standards.

3. What modern terminal emulation architecture looks like
   How browser-based, zero-client solutions eliminate many of the vulnerabilities and operational challenges inherent in legacy tools.

4. A practical, actionable migration roadmap
   Flynet will outline the recommended end-to-end steps from initial inventory to rollout, drawing from its detailed migration framework.

Why Modernizing Now Makes Strategic Sense

With PowerTerm no longer updated, organizations can use this moment to modernize host access in a way that strengthens security and simplifies operations.

A solution like Jubilant Terminal Emulator provides:

• Zero-client, browser-based access, no more installs, updates or desktop support overhead.
• TLS 1.2/1.3, WebSockets, MFA, SSO, Federated Identity.
• Centralised management for hosts, keyboard maps, macros and profiles.
• Full audit logging and RBAC, supporting modern compliance regimes.
• High scalability via multi-threaded, server-based architecture.
• VPAT accessibility compliance, unmatched in the emulator market.

Crucially, it removes entire categories of legacy risk:

• No Java or ActiveX clients
• No local plaintext macros
• No unlogged or unmanaged sessions
• No dependency on OS-specific builds

And because it centralises configuration, organizations often reduce the support burden on IT teams in the first month alone.

Who Should Attend

This webinar is designed for:

• IT Directors & Architects managing mainframe, IBM i, Unix or VMS access
• CISOs, Compliance Leads & Data Protection Officers
• Operations Managers responsible for thin-client estates
• Enterprise Architects evaluating Zero Trust or cloud strategies
• Anyone planning or assessing migration from PowerTerm

Even if migration is not planned until 2026 or 2027, the information will inform budgeting, risk scoring and strategy.

Bottom Line: EOL Has Already Arrived, and the Window to Act Is Narrow

Ericom’s EOL announcement created a hard stop.

From March 2025 onward, every month of continued reliance on PowerTerm increases:

• Cyber exposure
• Compliance exposure
• Operational risk
• Technical debt accumulation

An informed, controlled migration is always safer and cheaper than a reactive scramble triggered by audit failure, security incident or OS incompatibility.

Flynet’s December 10 webinar is designed to give organizations the clarity they need to move from vulnerability to advantage, replacing a legacy tool with a modern, secure, future-proof platform.

Secure your place now and make sure your organization is ready for what’s next.