Windows XP, Microsoft old school operating system, has had its source code leaked online – even tho it’s not 100% confirmed – along with Windows Server 2003.
Seattle’s own Windows XP, an almost 19-year-old operating system, was allegedly published as a torrent file on4chan.
This is big news as this is the first time that the source code for Microsoft’s operating system has been leaked to the public.
That the collection of torrent files, over 43GB in size, also said to include the source code for Windows Server 2003 and several Microsoft’s older operating systems, including:
- Windows 2000
- Windows CE 3
- Windows CE 4
- Windows CE 5
- Windows Embedded 7
- Windows Embedded CE
- Windows NT 3.5
- Windows NT 4
- MS-DOS 3.30
- MS-DOS 6.0
Windows XP now, Windows 10 next?
Allegedly the torrent downloaded archive also includes the source code for various Windows 10 components that appeared in 2017.
Also contained in the leak the source code for the first operating system of the original Xbox!
Microsoft has yet to confirmed – or deny – the breach of intellectual Ip, but several independent security researchers have since begun analyzing the source code and spoken of its legitimacy.
The aptly named billgates3, the leaker, claims to have compiled the collection over the course of a few months. But he also said that many Microsoft os source code files have been passed around in the Dark Web for years.
A modern robin hood, of sorts…
So he decided, because according to him “information should be free and available to everyone”, to leak everything.
“I created this torrent for the community, as I believe information should be free and available to everyone, and hoarding information for oneself and keeping it secret is an evil act in my opinion.”
Obviously it couldn’t have been a 4chan related post without some weirdness, because, besides containing source code, the torrent also includes a media folder related to conspiracy theories about Bill Gates.
The only known source Microsoft source code, until now, was its special Government Security Program (GSP).
This program has been around for a while and allows limited access to the code to Governments around the word.
Microsoft ended its support for Windows XP back in 2014.
That means that its source code leak doesn’t make the systems running the outdated OS version more of a target, considering all other unpatched vulnerabilities that already exist.
But exploitable flaws found in the Windows XP source code still present in Windows 10.
A new threat for millions of users.