Subj : Re: 3.19b not compatible with Windows XP?
To   : MRO
From : cadeon
Date : Mon Jul 18 2022 21:04:48

I agree with everything going on here. Running an insecure OS is stupid,
especially without the reasonable steps many folks are mentioning here. It's
not just your machine you're risking, it's everyone else's, because your
machine may get used as a platform for further attacks. 

*but*

<gets out a gas can to relight this flame war> 

According to shodan.io, there are 6,912 known Windows XP machines on the
unrestricted open internet right now. Most of them are in Korea and China, and
most of them have MS-SQL and/or Telnet open. So yea, they could be bots. 

If we widen that search to just any version of Windows, Shodan is aware of
2,815,587 exposed Windows machines. 1.3 million of which have 3389 (rdp) *open
to the internet* - and half a million have WinRM open to the internet. There
are certainly bots here.

Windows XP makes up less than a quarter of a percent of the open internet
accessible windows hosts right now.

So, 
I agree that connecting something to the internet in an insecure manner is a
bad idea, and we need to monitor our stuff inbound and outbound. 

I also agree that security through obscurity isn't a thing.

*but*

XP isn't a target anymore. It's not very capable and the exploitable host count
is tiny. Windows 7 definitely is a target right now, as it's modern enough to
be useful and it's unmaintained. 

Windows 10, 11, or Linux can be easily exploited if the administrator doesn't
update or monitor their stuff, the systems are useful and there's a lot of
them. The attack surfaces on these modern systems is much larger.

It's got more to do with the operator than it does the specific OS. 

> But the best thing is to just do things the right way the first time.
^ I agree completely. But OS selection is not the silver bullet to building a
sane/secure hosting environment. It's part of it, and depending on what you
select, you will have differing sets of other things you need to do in order to
host responsibly; many of the things touched on in this thread included.

(quietly dons a fire suit)
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