Not only has Tavis Ormandy, a security engineer at Google, found a security hole in the operating system, which is about to reach the end of Microsoft's support, he also listed the x86 assembler code showing the vulnerability on the non-disclosure website.
Support for the aging OS is due to end next month on, July 13.
As part of its end-of-product-lifecycle commitment Microsoft has said it will fix some vulnerabilities. However, given that Ormandy has released details of the vulnerability, Microsoft will now need to create a patch, under its support agreement.
Clive Longbottom, service director at Quocirca, sad, "XP is a completely safe platform and won't start failing. It has been running for eight years, so very little makes it go blue-screen."
He said if network perimeter security is sound, then there is very little need worry too much about risks on the XP client.
Microsoft has produced a work-around on its support website.
This article was first published by Computer Weekly