Ie 8

Lum

Once XP drops out of support, more and more vulnerabilities will appear giving malware authors more and more options.

XP has enough problems as it is, and it certainly isn't going to get any better after 2014.

closed

they said that about 98

there are probably billions of users happily still using xp out there

Lum

And it happened. I remember dealing with the fallout at the place I worked at the time. In that case the attack vector was one of those new fangled USB mass storage devices that the sales director was using to bring in a bunch of MP3s to listen to.

Doesn't happen so much nowadays because there are so few 98 machines left that they're not worth targetting any more.

The big difference between 98 and XP is going to be sheer numbers. These days the majority of people have computers and internet connections, they are pretty much considered essential items up there with the telephone. Back in the Windows 98 days home computers with net connections were still more of an enthusiast thing

closed

that's what virus scanners are for, they have been around well before 98 came out

Lum

Even good virus scanners don't catch everything, this one slipped past the virus scanner completely unnoticed. This would not have been a problem were it not for a fundamental flaw of Windows 98, that everything runs as admin. That allowed the virus to take hold and spread.

Had the AV caught it, it would not have been able to install itself. Had the OS been a bit more secure then it also would not have been able to install itself.

The old saying about not putting all your eggs in one basket springs to mind.

BTW, XP still has that same flaw in most home user installations, though if you're lucky you'll get an "are you sure you want to run this" prompt, which many people will simply click yes to out of habbit.

closed

the admin security model doesn't prevent infections, I have a w98 machine, with a virus scanner, it works on the web, it isn't infected and has never been. the argument that it's old, unpatched, and insecure therefore is going to automatically become infected more so than a newer os doesn't hold water. any machine, any os can get infected, the more lines of code, the more holes to attack, the latest windows os's still get infections, and will, for sometime to come. patching until the cows come home won't stop new infections coming along. the only reason to fear infections is loss of data or bank fraud, while both are a nuisance, the first is preventable by doing backups, the second is covered by the banks, who would need to limit the use of an old os or browser to avoid paying out on the basis of and out of date os. I expect antivirus vendors to carry on supporting xp for at least 5 years

we have gone off topic somewhat

Lum

I never said it would be automatically infected, just more likely to be infected.

98 is lucky in some ways. XP was more common when the whole worm thing really started ramping up. Remember when an unpatched XP machine would last about 4 minutes on the internet before being infected. An extreme case, and something only an idiot would even attempt, but after 2014 all XP machines will be essentially unpatched.

Your comment about the more lines of code, the more holes to attack is also overly simplistic and not necessarily correct, especially regarding more modern OSes. Vista, 7 and 8 ship with an awful lot of stuff, call it bloat if you will, but unlike XP the vast majority of it is turned off to begin with.