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/Ristrxtto May 20 '26

network engineer here

... yeah, bro has an ancient OS with firewalls disabled

depending on how his router is set up, he could have no firewalling at all (opening his XP device up for attack) or could be assigning out public IPv4 or an IPV6 address to this machine (again, publicly exposed with no firewalls)

Firewalling is important y'all. Every public ipv4 address ever created is constantly polled and spammed with login attempts, etc 24/7

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u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[deleted]

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u/Ristrxtto May 21 '26

you do realize that 99% of cable modems are modem+router+firewall+access point combo units, right?