In most cases, no. In older, unpatched systems, maybe, or using very specific exploits in very specific formats.
With most modern OSes, such exploits are proactively patched, and most systems have fairly sensible defaults for permissions.
Considering the relatively small number of linux systems of a specific distro, DE and version - its pretty unlikely.
In this specific case you'd need to open an image that's not an image, which would run some script or payload that would then exploit your system. Its unlikely.
If you saw a log in screen, and well, logged in, change that password - I suppose images might be handy to phish, a simple image should be harmless on its own
So, no, you don't need to reinstall your OS if you don't want to, and from the information you've given this seems excessively paranoid.
2It depends. If you open a file thinking it's an image, and it's not actually an image, then you could actually be opening a malicious file. "So I want to know If I have to reinstall a new operating system or it's safe?" - This is only something you can determined based on the determination, that you trust the person, who sent the attachment. – Ramhound – 2017-03-15T13:42:55.003
5
This type of question really belongs here: https://security.stackexchange.com/
– 에이바 – 2017-03-15T13:56:55.6372@에이바 The question – although it's a little broad – is also on-topic here. It's not really necessary to push questions somewhere else when they can also be answered on a particular site. – slhck – 2017-03-15T16:45:09.413
Assuming there are no bugs in the image handling of your email client/browser, the biggest risk here is cross-site request forgery which has no impact on your local machine.
– JimmyJames – 2017-03-15T18:25:04.633It might be okay to ask this on this forum, like this : https://superuser.com/questions/966551/is-it-possible-to-embed-a-keylogger-into-a-jpg-image
– Tech-IO – 2017-03-19T20:01:18.613