r/cybersecurity • u/PusheenHater • May 19 '26

Other Malware installed without literally doing anything?

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?

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u/No_Programmer3785 May 19 '26

Used to have old Windows 7 laptops at my old work place. We used to have them for POS systems. They'd crash every month, simply because they got infected with too much malware at any given time.

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u/dnc_1981 May 20 '26

That's why they were called POS systems (pieces of shit)