This has literally happened repeatedly in the past. Just last year an exploit came to light affecting Windows XP that was so bad Microsoft had to release another security patch for it. WannaCry and NotPetya malwares used similarly severe exploits in 2017.
Again though - best practice for using an EOL OS in 2025 mean that an attack like wannacry wouldn’t affect you, since you wouldn’t have the SMB ports exposed to the internet. You’d also have AV software - Defender at a minimum, which is fantastic - and the Windows firewall on.
Windows XP came out in 2001. Wannacry was 16 years later. Windows XP was from basically the beginning of the consumer internet, a different era. Windows 10 has a quarter of a century of knowledge and development on top of that. With each subsequent OS, the number of exploits that would get through the basic windows firewall and defender AV plummeted. An attack can’t get through on port X if port X is closed. Even if port X was open, the windows firewall or defender would stop it and warn the user. It’s almost like the developers learn from the past.
A very long matter.
This has literally happened repeatedly in the past. Just last year an exploit came to light affecting Windows XP that was so bad Microsoft had to release another security patch for it. WannaCry and NotPetya malwares used similarly severe exploits in 2017.
Again though - best practice for using an EOL OS in 2025 mean that an attack like wannacry wouldn’t affect you, since you wouldn’t have the SMB ports exposed to the internet. You’d also have AV software - Defender at a minimum, which is fantastic - and the Windows firewall on.
Windows XP came out in 2001. Wannacry was 16 years later. Windows XP was from basically the beginning of the consumer internet, a different era. Windows 10 has a quarter of a century of knowledge and development on top of that. With each subsequent OS, the number of exploits that would get through the basic windows firewall and defender AV plummeted. An attack can’t get through on port X if port X is closed. Even if port X was open, the windows firewall or defender would stop it and warn the user. It’s almost like the developers learn from the past.