Janet Jackson Music Video Declared a Security Vulnerability

Share post:

Janet Jackson’s music video Rhythm Nation has been declared a security vulnerability by MITRE and identified as CVE-2022-38392. According to researchers, the music video freezes some models of hard drives on older computers.

It is described as a Denial of Service (DoS), specifically a side channel attack that causes hard drives on some laptop PCs from 2005 to malfunction and crash.

Raymond Chen, a Microsoft blogger, said such a phenomenon had been around for a long time.

“A colleague of mine shared a story from Windows XP product support A major computer manufacturer discovered that playing the music video for Janet Jackson’s’ Rhythm Nation ‘would crash certain models of laptops. I would not have wanted to be in the laboratory that they must have set up to investigate this problem. Not an artistic judgement,” Chen stated.

He noted that playing the music video even brought down competitors’ laptops.

Chen pointed out that the researchers identified natural resonance frequencies as the necessary reason for the crash. Resonance is a physical phenomenon in which the sound generated by an object vibrates at the same frequency as the sound waves of another object.

“Playing the music video on one laptop caused a laptop sitting nearby to crash even though that other laptop wasn’t playing the video. It turns out that the song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the model of 5400 rpm laptop hard drives that they and other manufacturers used,” Chen said.

The sources for this piece include an article in BleepingComputer.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Related articles

Canadian School Boards Hit by Data Breach in PowerSchool Cyber Incident

A significant data breach involving PowerSchool, a widely used student information system, has affected multiple school boards across...

Chinese Hackers Compromised More U.S. Telecom Networks Than Previously Known

A new report from the Wall Street Journal reveals that a Chinese hacking campaign has compromised more U.S....

Cyber Security Today Year End Review: December 21, 2024

This is our year end show. We'll be back in early January, 2025. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Join...

Millions Stolen in Crypto Wallets Linked to 2022 LastPass Hack: Cyber Security Today for Friday, December 20, 2024

Millions Stolen in Crypto Wallets Linked to 2022 LastPass Hack, TP-Link Routers Face Possible U.S. Ban Over National...

Become a member

New, Relevant Tech Stories. Our article selection is done by industry professionals. Our writers summarize them to give you the key takeaways