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The incredible success of Windows XP was for Microsoft a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he dominated desktop space for years with this operating system, but he also struggled to move beyond XP. After years of trying to stop the support of updates, Microsoft finally abandoned XP five years ago. And yet, Microsoft has just found a bug so serious that it has released another fix for the aging operating system. The remaining Windows XP users might never know that it exists, though.
Microsoft has only provided vague details about the vulnerability, stating that it affects the Windows Remote Desktop component. The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) used by Microsoft is not vulnerable, but the flaw lies in the underlying implementation of Remote Desktop functionality. It is therefore a "pre-authentication" that does not require any user interaction. Microsoft claims that this makes the vulnerability "vermicular", which means that it could spread from one vulnerable computer to another as the malicious program WannaCry did in 2017.
This vulnerability affects several Windows products, including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP. Of these, only Server 2003 and XP are completely out of support. Windows 8 and later are not affected. The fix will be routed through Windows Update on systems that are currently receiving updates. Users of Windows XP and Server 2003 will have to download and install it manually, which very few of them are likely to do. Microsoft advises XP users to upgrade, but those who still use XP are likely to have a reason, although this is just extreme laziness.
Even though Microsoft has not revealed the exact flaw, even by pointing users to the remote desktop feature, one almost ensures that someone will design an attack in the next few days. Security experts expect to see fully automated attacks based on this vulnerability, which can spread any type of malware.
It would be much worse for Microsoft if the remote desktop vulnerability existed in modern Windows versions, but it's still not good news that Windows XP has such a flaw. The global market share of the 2001 operating system still oscillates between 3% and 4%. That means tens of millions of PCs
are still running on XP, and most of them are in industrial plants, hospitals, and businesses where they control vital applications that do not work on newer systems. Anyone using outdated versions of Windows can visit the Microsoft website to install the fix, which is approximately half a megabyte.
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