Source Code of Windows XP, Server 2003 leaked

The source code for Microsoft’s Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems was published as a torrent file on bulletin board website 4chan.

The source code for Microsoft’s Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems was published as a torrent file on the bulletin board website 4chan. This is the first time that the source code of Microsoft’s 19-year-old operating system was leaked online.

The leaker goes online with the moniker billgates3 and claims to have collected the source code over the course of the last few months.

The leaker also added that the source code for multiple Microsoft operating systems is circulating in the hacking community for years.

“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,” the leaker said,” [Micorsoft] claims to love open source so then I guess they’ll love how open this source code is now that it’s passed around on BitTorrent.”

The collection of torrent files leaked online is 43GB in size and include the source code for Windows Server 2003 and other older operating systems developed by Microsoft, including:

Windows 2000Windows CE 3 Windows CE 4 Windows CE 5 Windows Embedded 7Windows Embedded CEWindows NT 3.5Windows NT 4MS-DOS 3.30 MS-DOS 6.0

According to multiple media, the leaked Windows XP code is related to the SP1 version.

The collection of torrent also includes the source code some Windows 10 internal builds along with the source code for the first Xbox OS that was first leaked online in May.

Even if the Windows XP has reached the end of life, the popular OS is still running on roughly one percent of computers worldwide

The availability of the source code of the Windows XP could allow threat actors to search for zero-day issues that could be exploited in attacks against the tens of millions of PCs are still based on the popular Microsoft OS.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Microsoft Windows XP)