Cybercommunity experts and infamous hackers feasted on the recent post by an anonymous contributor on the 4chan website about the source code for the most extended and well-known Windows XP Operating System. The source code includes Windows Server 2003, Windows CE for handheld devices, and other Windows operating systems. The more dreaded thing included in the posts is such Windows 10 components that have been released in the 2017 update of the current OS of Microsoft company.
4chan is a well-known website that is considered the English counterpart of 2chan or the Japanese Futaba channel. It caters to an informational forum that ranges from anime and manga, video games, and other social topics like sports politics, music, and related cybercommunity interests. Recently, the site also posts controversies, cyberwar, racism, and other illegal contents that include violence.
Its current post became an immediate global sensation, especially with cybercommunity experts, as the posted source code has been confirmed by numerous known IT experts as legitimate code. These comments were published by the experts after their detailed review and analysis of the posted code.
The in-depth analysis confirms the source code already circulated under the radar between many threat actors in the past years. But this time, it involves collating different OS source code. The anonymous poster shared the 43GB torrent file size named ‘billgates3’ to the public because these should be accessible to everyone and since Microsoft is keen to open source, then sharing these codes is the right act.
Microsoft company has known ties with many government organizations worldwide. They share the source code of their Operating System because most computers used by these entities run on Windows.
This is a vital intel to these organizations to plan through any mitigation plan in case of an unprecedented attack that would target the Windows OS itself that can cause damage to the organization.
Cybersecurity experts have divided views and opinions concerning the leaked information. Since Microsoft already ended its support for Windows XP in 2014, most companies are now using Windows 10. The code is believed to have a minimal impact when used by scheming adversaries. A known vulnerability they may find might have already been addressed on the current version of the OS. As shown in recent statistics, only 1% of computers in the world are using Windows XP. Others show concern and being dreaded as few of the source code is also present in Windows 10, such as few components on it have been derived or repurposed from the old OS version.
Nonetheless, the leaked code is as necessary as the current one. Its history and multiple patches throughout its support life of 19 years is already a proof that it is the best and stable that made Microsoft company become on top of the line.