According to documents filed in the US District Court for Maryland, a Fannie Mae worker who had been terminated attempted to:

…cause damage to Fannie Mae’s computer network by entering malicious code that was intended to execute on January 31, 2009.

The worker was a contractor who worked at Fannie Mae’s data center in Urbana, Maryland as a Unix engineer. During – and inadvertently, after – his employment, he had access to all Fannie Mae servers.

As reported in ZDNet:

The tale of the malware bomb plot is a warning shot to all security teams and IT departments. Given the level of layoffs we’ve seen recently, the ranks of disgruntled former employees is likely to grow.

The ZDNet author, Larry Dignan, points out that companies of all sizes should pay attention to employee access to vital information, and have plans in place to prevent unauthorized access and safeguard data.

Off-site storage and protection of digital records is the very mission Perpetual Storage was created to serve. Companies storing data at Perpetual Storage know it’s just a matter of hours before they can retrieve the most recent iteration of their important data. Having that safeguard in place becomes an important part of insuring the success of your business.

There continues to be talk of computer “hackers” who work from remote terminals to tap into data centers and take information or ruin data.

However, a survey by the American Bar Association found that 77% of criminals came from within. The most frequently cited group for stealing or damaging company data were computer programmers.

“Hackers have received all the publicity, but the greatest threat by far still comes from individuals who work in the data center,” says Richard Bessenhoffer, vice president of Total Assets Protection, an Arlington, TX consultancy.

The survey questionnaire was distributed to Fortune 500 individuals and to federal, state, and local government agencies. The 179 respondents fielded questions ranging from estimates on total annual losses due to computer crime in the U.S., to views on the need for a federal statute on the punishment of computer criminals; 79% favored such a law.