Can a computer virus passively infect the computer by just being online?

whatdoiknow: Can a computer virus passively infect the computer by just being online?
Can a computer virus infect my computer just by being online? No downloading or uploading. No file sharing. No instant messaging/chatting. No opening of new browsers or opening email or email contents and such. Just leaving my computer on with my homepage screen and connected to internet.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Comp Dood
It’s definitely possible, but very unlikely. Even without your homepage open, you’re always vulnerable to a hacker accessing your computer. However, there would have to be some motive, as its not always simple to do.

Answer by Chris
Yes. Just recently I picked up the virtumonde? trojan without accessing any pages. if you caught that nasty bugger then it took like 20 scans with AVG free edition and Spybot Search & Destroy to take it out

Answer by kool43bz
yes it can

Answer by Torsten M
Yes. And no. At some point, something HAD to be done to allow access to your system. Once it’s already ON your system (via a Trojan Horse or some other “insider” method), it’s created what’s known as a backdoor… at that point the program running somewhere out there online DOES have access to your computer because you’re online… but only because of something that was let into your system at some point in the past.

Answer by Person
Yes, especially if you have not updated windows.

Answer by Hari
It is defintely possible,there is some thing in this world called “exploits”…