Likely or unlikely, it depends on the malware type you get infected
You consider that some malware search for critical vulnerabilities that may be present in computer networks, subject of the attack. To infect vulnerable computers, this malware sends a network packet (exploit), so the malicious code (or part of this code) is able to penetrate inside of the computer-victim, activating itself. If the network packet contains only a part of the code, once it runs the penetration into the vulnerable computer, it will download the file containing the main core module, by running it.
Some of these malware use simultaneously various exploits, and in this way, increasing the speed of the process through which they are able to locate and infect potential computer-victim over the network.