Virus, malware...vulnerable using windows XP as guest?

[Andrepartthree]

Hi guys, first time newcomer to the forum AND brand new to Virtualbox so if I make any newbie mistakes please let me know! Also a big shout-out to the people who designed virtualbox thank you so much ! My 13 year old daughter REALLY wanted to play an old PC game, Creatures Exodus (aka "Creatures 3 " ) but darn thing just would not cooperate with Windows 8 despite all the 'net research I did to try to make it function.. so a combination of virtual box and Win XP 64 bit (Professional) edition did the trick !

Here's my concern though... I've read about the numerous ominous warnings " Windows XP isn't safe !" , " Your PC will be hacked ! " and so forth with some nervousness .. but as I mentioned above don't have much choice but to use Win XP on virtualbox just to get the darn game to run in the first place. I did install Avast antivirus (free version) inside of Windows XP to be on the safe side...

However, my host (hope I'm using the term correctly, my "normal" windows setup) computer is Windows 8.1 with a paid version of Norton Internet Security that has served me well in the past far as protecting me from malware and so forth.. what I'm wondering is... when I run Win XP on virtualbox is it vulnerable to the "normal" security risks everyone's saying that Windows XP has? Or is virtualbox protected by a combination of the Norton Security on my host computer and the security updates Microsoft is still churning out for Windows 8.1 ?

Thanks very much to anyone who reads this and replies !

PS apologies if this has been asked before but my search-the-forum-skills suck .. I did try searching the forum and using search terms like "virus" and "security" with no luck... it's more than possible this has been already asked and answered and I just didn't see it ...

[mpack]

Here's my concern though... I've read about the numerous ominous warnings " Windows XP isn't safe !" , " Your PC will be hacked ! " and so forth...

The primary source of that information is people trying to sell you stuff to fix it.

The best antivirus equipment is a brain - i.e. don't do stupid things. And it doesn't even impact PC performance.

I don't think your Aviva app adds much to that. Personally I'd dump it. Instead make a backup copy of your fresh VM, and again at regular intervals if you want to. Do regular scans with non resident AV scanner such as MalwareBytes, if you find anything then scrap the VM and restore it from your clean backup. It isn't as if your VM is a big hardware investment.

Provided you don't copy executables into a shared folder then the host can't be infected.

[Andrepartthree]

Thank you mpack! . That's very true, I tell my kids to avoid downloading stuff unless I give it the official okay ... and I hadn't even thought of making a backup copy of my VM I'll be sure to do that ! Makes sense really, you can do routine backups of Windows 8 why not do it for the VM? Regular scans with MalwareBytes got it... should I install MalwareBytes within my guest Windows XP VM install and run it from there? Or does it make a difference whether I run it from XP or the host PC's Windows 8.1?

[mpack]

You need to think of the guest as a separate PC, networked to the host. Doing a malware scan of the host PC doesn't help you find malware in the guest. And vice versa.

p.s. Your kids can download anything they like. Nothing can happen until they attempt to run it (if it's an executable file) - so in essence what you absolutely must not do is run anything on the host unless you are sure about the source. Running it in the guest is ok - provided you are prepared to discard that VM if something nasty turns up.

[Andrepartthree]

Got it - thanks so much for your quick reply too !