Microsoft released the first public beta build of Whistler, build 2296, on October 31, 2000. Subsequent builds gradually introduced features that users of the release version of Windows XP would recognize, such as Internet Explorer 6.0, the Microsoft Product Activation system and the Bliss desktop background.[16]
Despite the approaching end of support, there were still notable holdouts that had not migrated past XP; many users elected to remain on XP because of the poor reception of Windows Vista, sales of newer PCs with newer versions of Windows declined because of the Great Recession and the effects of Vista, and deployments of new versions of Windows in enterprise environments require a large amount of planning, which includes testing applications for compatibility (especially those that are dependent on Internet Explorer 6, which is not compatible with newer versions of Windows).[130] Major security software vendors (including Microsoft itself) planned to continue offering support and definitions for Windows XP past the end of support to varying extents, along with the developers of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera web browsers;[120] despite these measures, critics similarly argued that users should eventually migrate from XP to a supported platform.[131] The United States' Computer Emergency Readiness Team released an alert in March 2014 advising users of the impending end of support, and informing them that using XP after April 8 may prevent them from meeting US government information security requirements.[132]Microsoft continued to provide Security Essentials virus definitions and updates for its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) for XP until July 14, 2015.[133] As the end of extended support approached, Microsoft began to increasingly urge XP customers to migrate to newer versions such as Windows 7 or 8 in the interest of security, suggesting that attackers could reverse engineer security patches for newer versions of Windows and use them to target equivalent vulnerabilities in XP.[134] Windows XP is remotely exploitable by numerous security holes that were discovered after Microsoft stopped supporting it.[135][136]
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Researchers reported in August 2019 that Windows 10 users may be at risk for "critical" system compromise because of design flaws of hardware device drivers from multiple providers.[142] In the same month, computer experts reported that the BlueKeep security vulnerability, CVE-2019-0708, that potentially affects older unpatched Microsoft Windows versions via the program's Remote Desktop Protocol, allowing for the possibility of remote code execution, may now include related flaws, collectively named DejaBlue, affecting newer Windows versions (i.e., Windows 7 and all recent versions) as well.[143] In addition, experts reported a Microsoft security vulnerability, CVE-2019-1162, based on legacy code involving Microsoft CTF and ctfmon (ctfmon.exe), that affects all Windows versions from the older Windows XP version to the most recent Windows 10 versions; a patch to correct the flaw is currently available.[144]
According to web analytics data generated by Net Applications, Windows XP was the most widely used operating system until August 2012, when Windows 7 overtook it (later overtaken by Windows 10),[154] while StatCounter indicates it happening almost a year earlier.[155] In January 2014, Net Applications reported a market share of 29.23%[156] of "desktop operating systems" for XP (when XP was introduced there was not a separate mobile category to track), while W3Schools reported a share of 11.0%.[157]
In the detected attack, the Ragnar Locker actors used a GPO task to execute Microsoft Installer (msiexec.exe), passing parameters to download and silently install a 122 MB crafted, unsigned MSI package from a remote web server. The primary contents of the MSI package were:
Windows XP (codenamed Whistler) is an operating system developed by Microsoft, released to manufacturing on 2001-10-25 and general availability on 2001-10-25. It is the sixth operating system in the Windows NT operating system line, succeeding Windows 2000 and preceding Windows Vista. It also succeeded Windows Me after the end of the Windows 9x kernel. It is one of Microsoft's longest lasting operating systems, with almost 13 years of support (both mainstream and extended) and still run on 0.51% of desktop and laptop computers worldwide as of January 2021[1]. It i2s also the last client version of Windows that supports computers without ACPI. 2ff7e9595c
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