I’ve been listening to Darknet Diaries and watching a lot of malware reverse engineering/exploring and I understand that there are many vectors for malware, but something that I can’t seem to find more information on is how malware can be hidden in a folder or a zip archive. Now that I’m typing this, I’m also curious if simple png or pdf files can have malware that will detonate when you open the photo. Also, I saw a guy showcase a website that will create a folder for you which grabs the location and ip of the computer if you open this folder, which was wild and I couldn’t fathom how it could be achieved with seemingly no other files in the folder.

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Would anyone happen to know how these things can be achieved? How paranoid should I be when I’m downloading random files/folders/archives off of the internet?