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I recently interned in cloud security for a mid-sized firm. In my first week, I spun up a free-tier EC2 for some testing (Only port 22 was open) and soon enough, the logs were full of port scans and unauthorized ssh attempts. It is only then I realized the scale at which malicious parties operate.

Suffice it to say, I was very careful with my filters after that incident.

Heck, not just EC2. Try doing this with a home connection. Add RDP into the mix.

It doesn't take long before one scan finds the port, and then a bunch of people start trying different attacks.

In 2004 a study was done that showed an unprotected PC connected to the internet was attacked within 20 minutes, half the time of a previous study just a few years prior.

If we suppose that it continues to half, say ever five years, it went to within 10 minutes in 2010, within 5 minutes in 2015, and is now somewhere around within 3 minutes for an unprotected PC to be attacked once connected the the internet.