YouTuber Eric Parker, decided to find out how long it would take «bare» Windows XP to be infected with malware in 2024 if the computer was simply connected to the Internet and nothing was done. Using a virtual machine, Parker created an instance of Windows XP without a firewall or antivirus.
Parker returned to the computer 10 minutes later and immediately found conhoz.exe, a known Trojan, in the task manager. He shut down the process and left the PC running again. Only a few minutes later, a new user with administrator privileges and a number of new processes appeared, including an FTP server.
Parker traced the malware’s connection to the Russian Federation. He speculates that the attackers are looking to create a botnet or spam email server on this computer. Further investigation revealed even more malware, including another trojan and a rootkit. A Malwarebytes scan revealed the full horror: eight malicious programs were actually running: four Trojans, two backdoors, and adware. In other words, the computer had become what is called a «zombie».
The experiment demonstrates how important security measures and timely software updates are. Simple caution, as it was many years ago, is no longer enough. Yes, you can enable the built-in firewall on Windows XP, but software that hasn’t been updated in years has little chance.