MITER has assigned vulnerability ID CVE-2022-38392 to the music video for Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" due to some older laptops breaking down while playing it. An attack carried out using the specified composition can lead to a system crash due to hard disk failures associated with the resonance that occurs when playing certain frequencies.
It is noted that the frequency of some instruments in the clip coincides with the oscillations that occur in disks rotating at a frequency of 5400 rpm, which leads to a sharp increase in the amplitude of their oscillations. Information about the problem was shared by a Microsoft employee who told a story from the everyday life of the Windows XP product support service about how, while analyzing user complaints, one of the major equipment manufacturers found that the composition "Rhythm Nation" leads to malfunctions in certain models of hard drives based on hard magnetic drives used in laptops manufactured by this manufacturer.
The problem was solved by the manufacturer by adding a special filter to the sound system that does not pass unwanted frequencies during sound playback. But such a workaround did not provide complete protection, for example, a case is mentioned in which the failure was repeated not on the device on which the clip was played, but on a nearby laptop. The problem was also fixed on laptops from other manufacturers sold around 2005. Information about the effect is disclosed since it has already lost its relevance at present and the problem does not appear in modern hard drives.
Source: opennet.ru