

yes? opening a picture with malware could infect your computer.
It would be a combination attack, so the virus would either target the correct media player or several of em.
here is a older vulnurability with vlc and avi file https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-25801
it is absolutely far less risky than downloading programs that run code, but it’s not without any risk
edit: windows programs also lets files call home. Script Command in windows media player f.ex 🤷



no, these things would try to exploit the program that read them.
it’s not a likely attack vector, you need both a malware file, and the right program trying to read it. it might not also be transferrable across different os.
so yes, it needs a media player to attack. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-25801 this one f.ex