Here's what happens if you connect Windows XP to the Internet in 2024

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polonyc2

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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

Using a virtual machine, YouTuber Eric Parker set up a Windows XP instance and configured it to be fully exposed with no firewall and no anti-virus software...so how long exactly does it take for malicious software to appear on the PC?...Parker returns to the PC 10 minutes later and, sure enough, there's something nasty running in Task Manager named conhoz.exe, a known trojan

He shuts that process down and leaves the machine running...within just a few more minutes, a new user has been added, plus a number of new processes, including an FTP server...so, yeah, within 15 minutes that's multiple malware processes and an entirely compromised machine with the bad guys having already created a new admin account and an FTP server running locally...Parker then traces the malware's communication to the Russian Federation...he speculates that the bad guys might be trying to set up a botnet or spam email server from his compromised machine...


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uSVVCmOH5w
 
I'm NOT advocating for the idea of running XP at all, but I'd still like to see comparison results from behind a simple consumer router. I mean really... no one buys a cablemodem or similar and plugs it directly into their PC with no router in-between. Or, on the flip side, see how newer versions of Windows (and other operating systems) handle being directly exposed to the internet with no NAT or firewall.
 
GotNoRice said:
o one buys a cablemodem or similar and plugs it directly into their PC with no router in-between.
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ummm, i do and always have, at least since theyve had built in wifi. never had an issue.


ChRoNo16 said:
Im calling straight BS, I have several older machines that run xp exposed to the internet, these things dont just appear, he made them appear.
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was wondering that too. someone found its ip and "hacked" it, or did he hit a shitty website first?!
 
pendragon1 said:
ummm, i do and always have, at least since theyve had built in wifi. never had an issue.
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No i'm not talking about Modem + Router combo units. I'm talking about standalone modems. If it has wifi, then it's certainly not a standalone modem. I'm talking about a Modem only, where you would end up with a public IP address on your computer's ethernet port, not a private IP address. You wouldn't even be able to have more than one computer on your network in the situation I'm talking about, because you only get one public IP address in most cases.
 
GotNoRice said:
No i'm not talking about Modem + Router combo units. I'm talking about standalone modems. If it has wifi, then it's certainly not a standalone modem. I'm talking about a Modem only, where you would end up with a public IP address on your computer's ethernet port, not a private IP address. You wouldn't even be able to have more than one computer on your network in the situation I'm talking about, because you only get one public IP address in most cases.
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do they still make those?! havent seen a modem only since the early 00s.
 
pendragon1 said:
ummm, i do and always have, at least since theyve had built in wifi. never had an issue.



was wondering that too. someone found its ip and "hacked" it, or did he hit a shitty website first?!
Click to expand...
A cable modem with built-in WiFi is going to have a router & firewall.

You'd have to use something like a Linksys cable modem that's basically a network bridge. I have one. I should reload XP on an old station I have laying around and plug it and see if I can replicate this. Maybe some day if I get bored.
 
ChRoNo16 said:
Im calling straight BS, I have several older machines that run xp exposed to the internet, these things dont just appear, he made them appear.
Click to expand...
On what basis are you calling BS? Not trying to start an argument or trolling. Just trying to learn something new.
 
pendragon1 said:
do they still make those?! havent seen a modem only since the early 00s.
Click to expand...
I just bought one recently. They're definitely still out there for cable. Less so for DSL, gotta find a modem you can put into bridge mode or whatever, but it's going to have all the stuff, just disabled.
 
pendragon1 said:
do they still make those?! havent seen a modem only since the early 00s.
Click to expand...

I'm currently using an Arris SB8200, which is a bare DOCSIS 3.1 modem, because I'm using a SFF Dell with pfSense on it as my router, along with multiple dedicated WiFi access points. With many combo units, you can usually disable the integrated router/WiFi and use them as standalone modems also if you wanted, but there is no reason for the extra hardware if you know that you aren't going to use it.

But they are definitely less common these days, and probably only something you would buy if you know exactly what you need / don't need. That probably doesn't include many people who would plug it directly into an XP machine. Most people would just use whatever their ISP gives them, which 99.9% of the time is going to be a combo unit. That's why the article seems kind of unrealistic/forced.

Using XP behind a router, you're probably not going to get infected automatically like that. But if you use the computer to do stuff on the internet, likely using an older vulnerable browser (since most mainstream browsers dropped support for XP already), that's when you would potentially run into problems.
 
pendragon1 said:
do they still make those?! havent seen a modem only since the early 00s.
Click to expand...
I got a tp-link tc-7610 back in late 2018, still works great. The rep at Cox didn't believe I had something that would work that wasn't theirs until they looked it up in their system. I think they just thought it'd be too slow, though, not that it was incompatible.

That said, yeah, no way I'm hooking any PC directly to it. I mean it might be okay with a properly set up software firewall, but there's just no reason to risk it.
 
ChRoNo16 said:
Im calling straight BS, I have several older machines that run xp exposed to the internet, these things dont just appear, he made them appear.
Click to expand...

^ This definately

I did this a while back and left an XP VM up and running for a couple of weeks.. and not a gd thing happened or "just appeared"..
Windows 7 also.. same experience...

There is a concept called "common sense"... browse on sketchy websites, use sketchy applications, etc... bad things happen... whether that is Windows XP or Windows 10
 
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