Win XP question

[cimbaliw]

I have an XP box that must remain an XP box to run some legacy music gear in my project studio. Believe me, Win 7 compatibility mode ain't compatible in this situation.

In lieu of the April 8 support shut off date, I have unplugged the XP box from my router. Does anyone know if simply disabling the network connection will provide a similar level of protection. When I tried it yesterday I could not access the internet but could still access other computers on the work group. It would be ideal to still share files between computers. The XP box is off when not in use.

BC

 

[jamesngalveston]

I dont think I would worry about it too much....I can not see why anyone would want to get into your router....must virus,worms,trojans never come through a router....its mostly emails and clicking on a pop up.
It takes quite a bit of work to get through any router. And I am not talking about a week are two...its a very sophisticated hack and there is nothing for anyone to gain by simply hitting random routers unless your warren buffet are bill gates.
Even then they would have to isolate the impossible.....I know from experience in this matter.
I run XP, on a few boxes and I run a few different Linux Ubuntu boxes. i have a mac but it just collects dust, to hard to tweak and I like to run 4 screens that work with each other, or independently.

 

[seth8530]

I think keeping it off then net would be more than fine.

 

[dralarms]

Heck, I'm still running a 98 machine.

 

[jamesngalveston]

dralarms....I still have a customer that runs win 98 and every year he ask for something different for his software...this year I told him no.
He has to upgrade all his software to run on at least xp.
It was done in the old fox pro.....if you know that.

 

[dralarms]

Oh yes. Mine is actually an old dos program. Lol. 98 is the latest version that will run it correctly.

 

[Pumpkinman]

Any data that reaches your computer, email included has passed through your router, there is no way around that.

I have to respectfully disagree about getting through a router, not only was it easy 10 yrs ago, the tools available to do it are far more advanced today, most home user grade routers are more of a tool to make the home user feel secure.

If you are concerned with the end of Life and no more security updates, trust me when I tell you that any XP hacks have already been done by this time.
The people that need to really worry about this are businesses that need to be either HIPAA or PCI compliant.

Taking your network offline is the safest way, obviously you can still run a peer to peer network with file shares.

In a previous life, I was an IT director for a chain of retail stores, part of my responsibilities was to secure the network, identify threats and implement firewalls that would stop attacks in their tracks.
The amount of attacks that we stopped once the Firewalls were in place was staggering!

Unfortunately the hardcore firewalls are expensive, but a good investment.
The bigger threat is through a wireless router or access point, I cannot begin to tell you how easy it is to capture data using a sniffer! Most people leave the generic IP address 192.168.1.1 and the default username and password, this is just inviting people in.

A possible solution for you would be to have a Windows 7 pro box for your internet, then connect the other computers that you want to share info and data to a separate switch, a linksys 5 port switch would do, very inexpensive, you then put the XP computers that will share in the same workgroup and the same IP scheme, for instance, name the workgroup "studio" and give them an IP address of 10.10.100.001, 10.10.100.002, 10.10.100.003 and so on.
If you have a server, join them to the domain instead of the workgroup, you'll have a private peer to peer that will not be accessible to anything outside of the group.
If there is anything that I can do to help, please do not hesitate to ask.

 

[jamesngalveston]

I agree with you somewhat....tom....
You can change the password on your router and change the encryption if you want, but if anyone wants to get in they will....I dont see why they would...
A chain of stores with cc,customer info, etc is a target for sure, look what you could do with all that info...
Kids today try to get in to routers and use for there internet usage, expecially if they have none, are mom and dad cut it off...
Big diffrence in getting some ones wep key and breaking in to the system to see what is there and what could be used.

 

[grapeman]

Ooooooooohh I love all this geek speak! Seriously, I do. Brings me back a few years. Networking was my livelihood for a number of years. Then I got tired of competing with all the a**holes out there that wanted nothing more than to break into a network or get a virus through to reak havoc on a system. That's when I switched over to drafting houses for people. I still got to use the best systems, yet didn't have to fix everyone elses problems.

 

[Pumpkinman]

You agree with me somewhat?...LMAO.... You don't have to agree with me at all, that's not the point, the point is that this was my line of work, I think that after doing this line of work for 15 years that I may know what I'm talking about.

Let me ask you a question...how do you think that people target networks or computers?
I'll tell you...they set up scanners that scan blocks of IP addresses, the ones that come back displaying weaknesses are the ones that are targeted, it's not that "Joe Hacker" in china for instance says "hmmmmmm...I've heard that there is a company in Galveston TX called James' company" lets hack that", there is no yellow pages with IP addresses, they scan millions of IP address and the hits that are the most vulnerable are tested, once they've breached the router, firewall and so on, they look for systems that are named "server, or Finance" and so on and attack them.

Again James, not only did we have to be trained in how to stop these attacks, we had to learn to use the tools used to hack and or sniff and capture wireless data, you don't need to have a WEP key, which I might add, WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy, on of the easiest broken wireless network security standards, to capture data, this is where it gets tricky, the data is captured en route between end points.

You ask why they would try, most times it isn't about what is on your computer, many times someone who is launching attacks will breach a computer and use it in a line of computers all over the world to launch attacks making it very hard to track them, for instance, they will set up bots on computers in several different countries and bounce the attack from one to the other before finally hitting the targeted system.

 

[cmason1957]

I agree with you completely and this is still my line of work. Home routers take someone who knows what they are doing about 5 minutes to get through, Less is there is a wireless access point. To be totally safe, it has to be of the network, however what you suggested doing will keep it fairly safe.

 

[cimbaliw]

Thanks everyone, sounds like a conservative approach is best.

Bill C.

 

[vacuumpumpman]

I will have to ask my IT person at work - he put windows xp on windows 7 computer, by clicking an icon - it would literally load and you could minimize at any time or just log off and windows 7 would always be there.

I know how to partition the drive and have 2 operating systems - but this was soo much smoother - I will try and post more on monday

 

[GreginND]

A LAN not connected to the outside world will have no problems. Connecting it to the world - always a risk.

Anyway . . . XP? Really? I'm so sorry.

Personally, I cook, clean and do a little laundry, but I don't do Windows.

I've used macs for many years. The last time I even worried about security and had a virus was in 1998 and it was a MS Office Macro virus.

 

[vacuumpumpman]

I will have to ask my IT person at work - he put windows xp on windows 7 computer, by clicking an icon - it would literally load and you could minimize at any time or just log off and windows 7 would always be there.

I know how to partition the drive and have 2 operating systems - but this was soo much smoother - I will try and post more on monday

this is what I was trying to explain on Sunday - heres a link

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Windows-Xp-Mode-in-Windows-7

 

[grapeman]

You will need to have Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate version to have access to the Virtual XP mode.

 

[Bibelljim]

If you cut off all communication with the outside world, for instance Network, etc, then yes.

If you burn cd roms and install things from another computer, then you run the risk of getting infected...

 

[GreginND]

Boy, windows seems so complicated. How many different versions are there? And what are the differences? On the Mac we have one OS and that's it. It's only $49. And I've never had virus protection and the last problem I ever had was in 1998 with a -- you guessed it -- a MS Office Macro virus.

 

[Runningwolf]

Or right Greg enough, you're beginning to sound like Ibglowin

 

[grapeman]

Or right Greg enough, you're beginning to sound like Ibglowin

I have been waiting for him to weigh in on this. LOL