Cybersecurity to the test: Would Windows XP survive if it worked in 2024?

With the idea of ​​simply trying and seeing what happens, a researcher wanted to run Windows XP on a computer, deactivating the Firewall and Windows Defender, to see how long it took to become infected.

Nostalgia for technology from the past sometimes hits some users very hard. Many fondly remember, for example, the operating systems they used as teenagers, and sometimes wonder how they would work today. Windows XP is one of those systems that, despite its age, is still present in the memory of many users.

But, How safe would it be to use it today? Would it survive considering that today companies like Microsoft have allocated millions of dollars for the cybersecurity of their systems? An experiment precisely wanted to answer this curious question.

Eric Parker He wanted to try and run Windows XP and, if that were not enough, he did so in a vulnerable state by disabling the Firewall and Windows Defender to simulate a vulnerable state.

The results? They were quite worrying: within minutes, the system started showing suspicious activity, and after just two hours, a malware had taken control of the team.

Eric Parker teaches why it is not safe to continue using Windows XP in 2024

Throughout this research process, Parker specifically found several malicious files that were trying to go undetected, posing as legitimate programs. Among these files was one that purported to be a “Microsoft build” and another from “Google,” all disguised in a way that could deceive victims.

With the idea to solve this problem, he installed Malwarebytes and did a full system scan. The security software detected eight malicious files, mainly classified as Trojans, adware and malware back door.

The truth is that it is logical that this has happened. Few people today think of using a computer with Windows 10 or Windows 11 without a firewall or an active antivirus, so it was clear that nothing good was going to happen if we were talking about an operating system that stopped receiving updates and security improvements a decade ago.