Back in 2000 we were mandated with a big push to eliminate all shared excel documents and turn them into real database driven products. There was this one department that had a huge excel database that was bringing the network to its knees. Around that time I had discovered that you could create a function in excel with the moniker of a null character (alt-255). We had used that for playing pranks on one another. Someone had the bright idea to put a function into the code that invoked a slowly increasing pause. That function was sprinkled all throughout their code and no one knew because you can’t see a null character.
A few months later that department was practically begging us to convert their excel document into a database project.
I read this, and thought to myself that a hacker would love to find that in code through analysis tools. They could then replace the delay with malicious code, and no one would be the wiser for quite some time.
Doing stuff like this seems creative and awesome at the time, but it breeds vulnerabilities something fierce. It also creates a nightmare for maintenance.
I would suggest a different approach of figuring out how much that Excel doc was costing the company every month, how much the company would save if the doc was converted to a real data service and Web front end, and then present the comparison at a meeting with management from that department - give them a chance to sign on before you take it to more senior management.
A few months later that department was practically begging us to convert their excel document into a database project.