By default the Python binary will try to load a file called "python27.zip" at startup. What if python27.zip was a "zip bomb"?
stat("/usr/lib/python27.zip", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=440, ...}) = 0
open("/usr/lib/python27.zip", O_RDONLY) = 3A bit different from a "smart" archive tool, or a virus-scanner, which tend to want to recursively unpack things until they run out of archives.
Duct taped it by doing roughly 'rm /tmp/av_system//' in cron once a minute to keep things up while we tracked the offending email down and malleted it out of existence.
AV vendor intentionally not mentioned since >15 years later I'm sure their code is mostly different and mostly not maintained by the same people.