Windows XP

matttye

closed wrote: »

No they won't, if they have a router, an antivirus, and a backup. The first 2 of those are commonplace, the third not as common as it should be.

I had all three of those and I still got infected with it. AVG did sod all about it. It used to cause a buffer overflow in the RPC, which caused the PC to shut down.

At the time I didn't have a smartphone or tablet, so I had to search the web for a command to stop the system shutting down in the 60 or so seconds I had before it shut down. Once I learned about 'shutdown -a' it was easy to sort out after doing some more research.

I don't see why something similar wouldn't work today, with the right exploit.

closed

I dealt with it too, and many other worms, they are a pita once they get inside a large organisation, but in general this is a home users forum, and things have changed since 2003

Routers with nat are normal, dialup and adsl modems are largely gone. That stops a lot of worms, they can only attack open connections or get in via a users actions. If someone attaches a system with the original unpatched version of xp onto the net behind a router ... nothing will happen. If they attach with an adsl modem, they'll probably get infected very quickly.

Anti virus firms are playing catchup continually, but they will still catchup with a new virus that affects xp or 7/8

A proper backup is the ultimate protection, external hard disk costs £40, blank cd/dvd 10p, software to do it free, time to do it 5 minutes upwards depending on data size.

As XP continues to reduce in numbers, virus writers will concentrate elsewhere. Is anyone trying to exploit windows 98 now, i doubt it.

googler

waddler_8 wrote: »

Show the proof they wont.

Great.

I ask for proof of a positive, and you ask me to first prove the corresponding negative.

Nice circular argument.

Jivesinger

closed wrote: »

A proper backup is the ultimate protection, external hard disk costs £40, blank cd/dvd 10p, software to do it free, time to do it 5 minutes upwards depending on data size.

Obviously having multiple, regular, offline backups is a really good idea.

However it only protects you against losing local data, and as more and more of our lives are conducted online, that's no longer enough.

If someone can install malware like a keylogger, and hack into a bank account, or buy things with an online shopping account, or maliciously delete someone from social networks (important for some people), then having a backup won't help you.

So I disagree that good backups are 'ultimate' protection.

closed wrote: »

As XP continues to reduce in numbers, virus writers will concentrate elsewhere. Is anyone trying to exploit windows 98 now, i doubt it.

I bet XP still shares a some of its codebase with Windows 8, so even in 5 years' time, holes which get patched in Windows 8 will still be wide-open in Windows XP. Windows 98 uses very different code so doesn't share so many vulnerabilities as current Operating Systems.

closed

when you start ANDing IF's together, you get a very small probability.

IF an exploit is created that only targets a hole in XP that isn't and won't be patched
If the exploit is designed to delete/encrypt data or steal money
If Microsoft don't change their mind and patch a bad exploit
IF you hit an infected website with this exploit or get an email/usb stick with it on and click on an executable
IF you don't sandbox surfing
IF the website hosting it hasn't picked it up before you got there
IF this exploit destroys data OR steals financial details
IF your AV doesn't pick it up
IF your ISP or AV doesn't block the site hosting it.
IF you have no windows disc/serial number
IF you have no backup
IF your bank security is so weak that a keylogger can obtain sufficient information to steal money
IF your bank doesn't honour the guarantees against fraud
If the user has no alternate machine with newer OS to do banking on

Then you may have a problem over and above the same problem hitting a W8 machine.

Worse case scenario, you lose all your data and get your life savings stolen, have no backup, and bank refuses to pay up - could also happen on billions of W8/W7 machines currently running with unpatched holes.

matttye

Have Microsoft ever patched older OSes after they said they would stop supporting them?

They have stated quite categorically they're dropping support for it, so I don't see why they would change their mind.

matttye

Also, once support is dropped for XP your main line of defence is going to be antiviruses that respond to attacks, rather than system updates which prevent them. By the time an antivirus responds, the damage may already have been done.

According to Net Applications, 31% of computer users still use Windows XP. That's not exactly insignificant.

And when you consider that it will be much easier to attack an unpatched OS, I don't see why attackers wouldn't target XP. Windows 7 is obviously going to be a lot more secure so, even though it has a higher market share, it will require more time and dedication to breach it.

Peter999_2

Corporate customers will still recieve patching for the foreseeable future ... at a price (and a hefty one at that).

Johnmcl7

matttye wrote: »

I had all three of those and I still got infected with it. AVG did sod all about it. It used to cause a buffer overflow in the RPC, which caused the PC to shut down.

At the time I didn't have a smartphone or tablet, so I had to search the web for a command to stop the system shutting down in the 60 or so seconds I had before it shut down. Once I learned about 'shutdown -a' it was easy to sort out after doing some more research.

I don't see why something similar wouldn't work today, with the right exploit.

If you're referring to MSBlaster then your firewall wasn't working as the virus required open ports to infect machines.

The reason MSblaster spread so quickly was because it was in the early days of ADSL when many people were directly connected to the internet through USB ADSL modems (no NAT or router for protection) and the pre-SP2 version of Windows XP set the firewall as disabled by default. Simply enabling the windows firewall was enough to prevent an MSblaster infection as it blocked the port the virus used, as would any standard firewall product.

The situation now is different as the Windows firewall is enabled by default (and anti-virus is enabled by default on Windows 8) since Windows XP SP2 onwards, most people connect through a router and security is taken more seriously so the likes of the horribly insecure IE6 is gone and there are features to prevent people running everything as admin by default. All this makes it extremely difficult for malware to spread as MSBlaster did, we may see a larger scale outbreak if a big well known website gets hacked to host malware but even it's still not going to be able to rapidly infect other machine as MSBlaster could.

John

almillar

I don't stand to make any money out of this - but advising people to keep using an unsupported OS is bad advice. If you know what you're doing, and you know the risks, fine, go ahead, plenty of AVs are there for you, and the Chrome announcement is good news. But to be advising people who admit to not being tech savvy NOT to upgrade is just asking for trouble. And I don't mean granny's knitting patterns being stolen, I mean her computer being used to fill all our inboxes with spam.
Chances are, apart from very few users with specialised, and probably OFFLINE uses, that people SHOULD upgrade, which will often involve simply buying a new computer anyway.