A Windows XP machine's life expectancy in 2024 seems to be about 10 minutes before even just an idle net connection renders it a trojan-riddled zombie PC

www.pcgamer.com

Just a fun, somewhat terrifying read

55 comments

Wow, Windows is better! Look at how fast you can set up an FTP server, without even issuing any commands!
Beat that, Linux!
- This is a top tier joke
  
  Torvolds adding neuralink kernel support /s
- About 15 years ago I left a PC running an ftp server with no password. Weeks later I went to use it and it had 0 disk space. The drive was filled with PS2 isos.
  Thanks hackers!
- I can write an ansible playbook to do it. Probably just pull in a container
A bit clickbaity..
configured it to be fully exposed with no firewall and no anti-virus software
And I'm also assuming this was then exposed directly to the internet like a server, not behind a NAT or anything like that.
I mean you're setting up a 20 yo unpatched consumer lever OS to fail for the giggles and you kneecap it on top of it - which is fine, but hardly surprising.
- I bet they just threw it into the DMZ, turns out when you park your car in a bad part of town and leave all the windows open and the doors unlocked, bad stuff happens to it
  
  And the keys in it, with a light on top flashing "look at me!"
- And I’m also assuming this was then exposed directly to the internet like a server, not behind a NAT or anything like that.
  That's how consumer PCs were often setup back in the early XP days though. There was a time when a household typically didn't have more than one computer or internet connected device. So people didn't have a NAT-ing router and instead connected their DSL or cable modem directly to their PC, and were completely exposed to the internet. To make matters worse, the firewall was disabled by default in early XP versions as well, until SP2.
  This is how Sasser and the Blaster worm were able to wreak havoc, and until home routers started to become common, it was a genuine concern that on a new XP installation you'd be hacked before you had time to patch.
  In the early days we learned a lot of things about security through trial-and-error, basically running head-on into the issues, and then going "oh...".
  
  This isn't a test of the "early days" XP and internet. This is a test of current day, because clearly the implication is "look how bad it is to use XP in 2024"
  
  Was it disabled? I thought that XP just didn't have a firewall and got one added later on. I forget which virus it was but RPC would crash within seconds of a device being connected to the internet meaning you had to reboot.
  Edit
  Apparently it was MSBlaster
And yet XP is still running god knows how many major company systems (air gapped of course, but still).
- I would expect there to be problems with most machines if they were to be fully exposed to the internet, nobody actually uses a computer like this
  
  My router is a computer connected to the Internet. Yours probably is too.
- Didn't someone implement a virus at some point that propagated through sound from speakers to microphones?
  
  That was a way to offload information from an air gapped system. It already has to be compromised to work
  
  IIRC that was not proven and the researcher who made that claim had some mental illness? Idk
- Oh yea, I was consulting in a factory recently and one production line was running off of Finnish windows XP with no service packs because the software for the machines doesn't support anything else.
Security research is interesting. Exploits get fixed but not everyone updates their software and not every company ensures their software isn't vulnerable to them. So there are programs that will run through every known vulnerability and test if the target is vulnerable. They'll check for old exploits that work on Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. Apparently it's not uncommon to find large enterprises still running these.
The XP stands for eXPloit.
Damn just imagine this being the old net. With viruses still roaming the digital waterfront eager to infect and eat anything that is foolish enough to breach in.
This makes me think of the Blackwall in Cyberpunk 2077. That game felt too real while I was playing it and I’m not looking forward to more of it feeling real as time goes on
Doesn’t a bunch of military equipment still run WinXP?
- U.S. military doesn't run standard versions of Windows and many if not most military terminals don't connect to World Wide Web.
  Not perfect but if it's only connectd to Army intranet, might not be vulnerable?
  
  That question mark instills a lot of confidence.
  
  Embedded systems may technically run an OS or on and OS, but they’re really their own thing.
  
  Can you expand on this with some more detail?
  I’ve worked on DoD networks continuously since 2011 and nothing you said is true, provided I understood you correctly.
Well that guy’s network and all of his friends too are now compromised. Good job.
- I guess you missed the bit about it running on a virtual machine, huh?
  
  I guess you have no idea about Virtual Machine escape, huh?
  
  VM does not mean it is safe. There is malware out there that can break the sandbox and infect the hypervisor