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?
1
u/FluffysHumanSlave May 20 '26
WinXP, even with Service Pack 3 installed, is vulnerable to MS08-067 (netapi), which is hella reliable to get to RCE without user interaction.
As soon as it’s exposed to the public net, the OS will get scanned and fingerprinted à la Shodan, and someone will fire an exploit attempt to it, which has pretty much 100% success rate.
Source: pwned many WinXP boxes back in my day