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Tamron on 30 October 2014
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Imaginedvl said:
Tachikoma said:
mornelithe said:

Praise Microsoft....for making Windows and IE so filled with holes and exploits, that most people focus on that :D

Not directly related but a fun point non the less.

Windows XP is now so atrociously exploited that the combined number of compromised machines on the planet ensure that a windows XP machine on a fresh install will contract a virus or malware within 10 seconds of the network being connected, with no input or actions taken by the user to achieve this.

There's just that many malware/spyware/virus ridden machines constantly throwing out their junky tentacles in to the web that WinXP without a good firewall is like waving a bagel at a flock of hungry seaguls.

Dude... I know it is cool to say something like that but I hope you realize how wrong this is... Stop saying random non-sense stuffs like that to try to prove your point. Maybe you read something like that on a forum or somewhere else but it does not make it real. And I hope you do not really know computers, network and how a virus or malware spread and what weakness is used to "spread" to make that kind of comment. (and even if you read that on a random forum, at least provide source...)

Firstly, she's no dude.

Secondly, perhaps you weren't around in the days of windows XP's phase-out period, but there was this little bugger of a virus called Blaster, which has since spawned thousands of variants.

In 2008 (6 years ago now, nearly 7), the average "time to own" of a fresh install windows XP machine, with no action taken from the user was 4 minutes.
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2008/07/average-time-to-infection-4-minutes/

"While the survival time measured varies quite a bit across methods used, pretty much all agree that placing an unpatched Windows computer directly onto the Internet in the hope that it downloads the patches faster than it gets exploited are odds that you wouldn't bet on in Vegas. "

These survival times vary from country to country, dependant upon factors such as number of people on the same ISP block running an infected windows XP machine, and on if the router you're using is running it's own firewall or not, but here's an interesting graph for you based on a fresh XP install connected to the internet, from moment of connection and moment of infection, this is for the period spanning he past year only.

And this is even with most ISP's over the past 5 years adding filtering rules specifically intended to stop these viruses and worms, and the average isp provided router including a firewall.

Fact of the matter is simply this, XP is a deathtrap unless you have all of the latest updates on a usb stick to apply, a good software firewall and a good hardware firewall.