'Fax virus' panicked a manager and cost consultant their job

"That didn't stop spammers and scammers sending dodgy faxes, or office pranksters sending funny faxes to friends. One day, the fax machine in Seamus's office spat out a message that warned a computer virus had already infected all of the department's Windows 95 machines. The fax claimed the virus would manifest at any moment, erase data, fatally overheat PC processors, and require staff to use pen and paper for 24 hours."

""The very act of sending it by Fax belied the security-consciousness of the sender, who rather than using the then only somewhat trusted email decided an analog sideband was the safest way to share the bad news," Seamus told On Call. Someone on staff was so scared by the fax that they scanned it - making its appearance even more sketchy - then attached it to an email they sent to everyone in the department."

During the late 1990s, fax machines fell out of favor as transmissions often produced blurry, ransom-note–style documents because of primitive scanning, low bitrates, and cheap printers. Spammers and pranksters continued to send dubious faxes alongside legitimate traffic. One office received a fax warning that Windows 95 machines were already infected with a virus that would imminently erase data, overheat processors, and force staff to use pen and paper for 24 hours. The sender preferred fax over email, using an analog sideband to broadcast the warning. A frightened staffer scanned the fax and emailed it to everyone, and a Reply-All from a consultant declared the notice a hoax and criticized the original sender, who was later identified as a senior executive.

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