Random Thoughts

[Angrboda]

YouTuber Eric Parker demonstrated in a recent video how dangerous it is to connect classic Windows operating systems, such as Windows XP, to the internet in 2024 without any form of security (including firewalls or routers). The YouTuber set up a Windows XP virtual machine with an utterly unsecured internet connection to see how many viruses it would attract. Within minutes, the OS was already under attack from several viruses.

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Two minutes after hooking up his Windows XP virtual machine to the internet, Eric Parker found a couple of viruses that randomly installed themselves on the machine, including a virus dubbed "conhoz.exe." Soon afterward, another virus automatically created a brand new Windows XP account dubbed "admina" that apparently was hosting an FTP file server on the machine.

It didn't take long for many other trojans, viruses, and malware to appear on the system. Eventually, Eric Parker installed Malwarebytes on the XP machine to see how many viruses it would catch. It caught eight viruses classified as trojans, backdoors, DNS changers, and adware. There were still more viruses on the machine, but the free version of Malwarebytes Eric Parker used was only able to catch eight of them.

Windows 2000 suffers a similar fate

Eric Parker also did the same experiment in Windows 2000 and discovered even worse effects on the older OS. Within minutes of exposing the OS to the internet (and ensuring all ports are open, including ports for SMB), a virus installed itself on the computer and automatically shut down the virtual machine. After restarting the VM, more viruses appeared, eventually causing the operating system to blue screen.

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/wi...sed-online