An excel spreadsheet crashed this company's network.
But it wasn't malware.
The truth is *much* weirder.
Try this out, open up a xls (not xlsx) file in your favorite text/hex editor. Notice all the repeating characters in the header.
When receiving POP3 emails with an excel attachment, the characters bit patterns caused a signalling pattern on the physical copper of the company's T1 line, crashing the network equipment.
But it wasn't malware.
The truth is *much* weirder.
Try this out, open up a xls (not xlsx) file in your favorite text/hex editor. Notice all the repeating characters in the header.
When receiving POP3 emails with an excel attachment, the characters bit patterns caused a signalling pattern on the physical copper of the company's T1 line, crashing the network equipment.
It's easy to forget about the physicality of computer systems; electrical machines can do *weird* things. Just ask your local EE.
Yes, this might be a bit of an older story; but electrical isolation issues are still an important problem, especially with all of today's high bandwidth links (think displayport, usb4, etc...).
It's a good reminder to not take electronic communication for granted. If you'd like to read the full saga of this story, as well as how they diagnosed the issue, you can find the original thread below:
old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/com…
Yes, this might be a bit of an older story; but electrical isolation issues are still an important problem, especially with all of today's high bandwidth links (think displayport, usb4, etc...).
It's a good reminder to not take electronic communication for granted. If you'd like to read the full saga of this story, as well as how they diagnosed the issue, you can find the original thread below:
old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/com…
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