Clean Windows XP survived 10 minutes on the internet before being infected - it was hit by malware from russia

YouTuber Eric Parker decided to find out how much time it would take for a "naked" Windows XP to be infected with malware in 2024 if the computer is simply connected to the internet and left idle. Using a virtual machine, Parker created an instance of Windows XP without a firewall and antivirus.

Parker returned to the computer after 10 minutes and immediately found the conhoz.exe Trojan in the task manager. He stopped this process and left the PC running again. Within a few more minutes, a new user with administrator rights and several new processes appeared, including an FTP server.

Parker traced the connection of the malware to the Russian Federation. He suggests that criminals are trying to create a botnet or a spam email server on this computer. Further investigation revealed even more malware, including another Trojan and rootkit. Malwarebytes scanning revealed the horror: in fact, eight malicious programs were running - four Trojans, two backdoors, and adware. In other words, the computer became what is known as a "zombie."

The experiment demonstrates how important security measures and timely software updates are. Relying on simple caution, as it was many years ago, is no longer possible. Yes, you can enable the built-in firewall on Windows XP, but software that has not been updated for many years has little chance.