A standard plain text file (.txt) cannot contain active malware, viruses, or executable code because text editors treat the contents strictly as readable characters rather than executable commands. However, social engineering attacks can sometimes exploit human trust or flaws in text-handling applications. For instance, a malicious actor might attempt to distribute a file named with a deceptive double extension or exploit a rare vulnerability in a poorly coded text viewing application to trigger a buffer overflow. Despite these theoretical edge cases, opening a genuine, clean text file containing raw characters is fundamentally safe and free of malicious software payloads.