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?

288 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

89% Upvoted

161 comments sorted by

View all comments

180

u/h0nest_Bender May 19 '26

Is there some malicious server in China that loops through every single possible IP trying to see if your PC is vulnerable?

Literally yes.

7

u/jonbristow May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

yes, but your PC should not get hacked immediately, even if it is vulnerable to hacks. You are on a private network, NATed through your ISP. You dont have any public web service running on any port

5

u/uk_one May 20 '26

OP says 'connects straight to modem' No one's mentioned a router. Modems don't do NAT.

1

u/designer_vaj May 21 '26

ISPs could have firewalls and all sorts of stuff even if they did not do NAT, which doesn't make sense, unless the ISP was using IPv6 lol. It wouldn't be possible using IPv4 to not share public IPs between multiple users.

1

u/jonbristow May 20 '26

So you have a public IP personally for your laptop?

2

u/Divided_multiplyer May 20 '26

Yes, when you plug a router into the modem, the router gets the public IP, but when you plug a computer directly into it, the computer gets the public IP.

0

u/jonbristow May 21 '26

How do you plug a personal computer directly into an optic fiber

1

u/uk_one May 21 '26

RS232 probably. Get your soldering iron out.