A tool on the Microsoft Exchange email server failed to save the time when the calendar moved to 2022, causing disruptions in mail delivery around the world.
This situation began to be reflected by many users and businesses using on-premises Microsoft Exchange servers at dawn on January 1, right when the clock turned to the new year. They cannot receive email messages, because these emails are intercepted by the FIP-FS tool on the Exchange Server.
FIP-FS works to detect and prevent spam and malicious code, protecting users from the risk of being attacked via email. When enabled, all email will have to go through FIP-FS before reaching the user's mailbox. However, when the clock moves to 2022, FIP-FS has trouble reading the time, resulting in messages coming through here are blocked. The system displays the error message "Initialization Failed FIP-FS Scanning Process".
An error message of the Exchange system due to not being able to read the date of 2022.
BleepingComputer page quotes many system administrators as saying that the root cause comes from the fact that FIP-FS uses the "Int32" type to store the values of time variables. The maximum value this type can store is "2,147,483,647".
Meanwhile, dates in 2022 have a minimum value of "2.201.010.001", which is larger than the value that the Int32 type can store, making it impossible for FIP-FS to scan successfully.
To fix the problem, experts say that Microsoft needs to release an Exchange Server update with a larger variable pattern. Email systems can temporarily disable FIP-FS, but this poses the risk of users receiving a lot of spam and malicious mail.
Microsoft has confirmed the issue. The company said "the issue is related to a date check error due to the change of the new year" and is working to resolve it. In the meantime, users can turn off malware scanning on the Exchange server and use a third-party alternative.
Previously, computer systems around the world also had problems related to "Y2K" time. When the calendar changed from 1999 to 2000, the computer misinterpreted the year 2000 as 1900, because only the last two digits were stored. The problem caused many computer systems to stop working, many organizations had to upgrade equipment after 2000.