I get that there won’t be any security updates. So any problem found can be exploited. But how high is the chance for problems for an average user if you say, only browse some safe websites? If you have a pc you don’t really care much about, without any personal information? It feels like the danger is more theoretical than what will actually happen.
Or… are there any examples of people (not corpos) getting wrecked in the past by an eol OS?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uSVVCmOH5w
XP … Exploited in 2 minutes
When you stop getting updates, that’s okay if you’re isolated, and not talking to any networks. But if you’re on the network at all, you’re falling behind the ecosystem. You stopped evolving, you’re static target, everybody knows your door code etc etc etc
This is why you can see ancient machines running industrial machinery totally isolated, but you’d never see one attached to a network
I guess that’s where I have a limited understanding of how Internet and maybe even exploits works: how would people even find my machine? There is little to no incentive, unlike with a corporation. They must know where my door is to even use the keys.
Can you just sort of do a brute force scan of all machines currently on the internet? Seems unlikely. In my mind, you can only access a machine if you have some idea about it’s whereabouts, either physically or digitally. But then again, I have no knowledge about these kinds of things.
Check out shodan.io Search your own IP. There are plenty of state actor tools that do the same thing. vulnerable systems are targeted because they’re vulnerable, not because there’s a payout. Most of the time you’d just automate the attacks with something like msfconsole and a ruby script.