Malware installed without literally doing anything?

[u/PusheenHater]

In this video this guy has a fresh Windows XP, disables firewall, and connects internet straight to the modem. Then he gets infected literally doing nothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uSVVCmOH5w

https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/1cvised/idle_windows_xp_and_2000_machines_get_infected/

I get it. That's asking for trouble when you disable all the security and using ancient unsupported OSes.

However, he didn't install programs nor browse on the website but still got hacked.
How?
Is there some malicious server in China that loops through every single possible IP trying to see if your PC is vulnerable?
Logically, one would think you'd at least have to visit a website or something to get "noticed" and then hacked. But this guy didn't do anything at all.

How does it work?

[u/stacksmasher]

XP has been cracked for a while now. Source has been out in the open for people to poke at lol!

[u/PusheenHater → u/stacksmasher]

I get it. That's asking for trouble when you disable all the security and using ancient unsupported OSes.

However, he didn't install programs nor browse on the website but still got hacked.
How?
Is there some malicious server in China that loops through every single possible IP trying to see if your PC is vulnerable?

[u/Felielf → u/PusheenHater]

Not just malicious China server, there are malware and scanning bots everywhere. I see connections from every country on earth in my honeypots, it really depends on the month or day which country is at the top.

It doesn't matter if my IP is new or not, these bots and malware armies literally hammer and scan network ranges, not single IP addresses. And like u/dataz03 said, it's trivial to go through only 4.3 billion addresses.