How can big software (ex: windows xp) that has been used by millions and secured against all kinds of attacks throughout the years still manage to be insecure once its support has ended?

Question

For example a product like windows xp, it has been tested and secured by professionals throughout the years and on top of that patched against all kinds of security holes that might have appeared during that period.

Hasn’t the number of people that try to find security holes in windows xp decreased over the years when it wasn’t the main operating system from Microsoft anymore and they still manage to find security holes that a bigger group couldn’t find and hence making the operating system not secure?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Imagine it like a guy who lived healthily in the 16th century. He wasn‘t ill and his immune system was strong enough to protect him agains almost all viruses he‘d encounter in his lifetime.

Now put him in a time machine, take him to our time and expose him to our common cold. The virus is so different that this poor mans immune system has just no idea what to do, and he dies.

Take what happened to the Native Americans when the Europeans came: The Europeans had viruses in them that they didn‘t even know about. But once they spread to people with immune systems unfit for that sort of thing, you get genocide.

Windows XP is the great wall of China and todays viruses are jets. Nice wall, aint no protection.