So, you mean to tell me that unless I upgrade, that my Whonix is completely vulnerable?
The easy answer is "yes". No one looks into these versions anymore. Debian oldstable (currently: wheezy) which old versions of Whonix are based on have very little funding/manpower. (source: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Funding https://www.freexian.com/services/debian-lts.html)
If its unsupported then why am I still receiving the updates via Whonix check?
Because updates via apt-get are never purposely broken.
I have gigs and gigs of data that I need to back up and i have tons of programs installed...youre telling me im going to have to reinstall and download everything?
Yes.
I dont even know how to back up all the data I have..
If you care about not losing all data, you should have backups anyway. Data not at least backed up twice can be considered deleted.
how can I attach an external HD to whonix to save everything.
Depends on virtuallizer. VirtualBox? ... VirtualBox:
https://www.whonix.org/wiki/File_Transfer#Adding_USB_device_to_VirtualBox
Shared folder is easier:
Seems like an easier alternative to an update could have been designed.
I don't know what you mean by that.
Stay tuned:
Special instructions for 10 -> 11 upgrades required: