Feds: Sysadmin Planted Logic Bomb at Drug Company
A computer administrator upset over the possibility of losing his job planted an electronic “bomb” in the systems of one of the nation’s largest prescription drug management companies, prosecutors said Tuesday.
If the so-called “logic bomb” had gone off at Medco Health Solutions Inc., it would have wiped out critical patient information, authorities said.
Even after surviving a round of layoffs, Yung-Hsun Lin, 50, kept the code in the system and tinkered with it in an attempt to set it off, prosecutors said. The bug eventually was discovered and neutralized by the company.
U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said the bomb could have caused widespread financial damage to the company, and possibly harmed a large number of patients.
Among the targeted databases was one that tracked patient-specific drug interaction conflicts, prosecutors said. Before dispensing medication, pharmacists routinely examine that information to determine whether conflicts exist among a patient’s prescribed medicines.
“The potential damage to Medco and the patients and physicians served by the company cannot be understated,” Christie said. “A malicious program like this can bring a company’s operations to a grinding halt and cause millions of dollars in damage from lost data, system downtime, recovery and repair.”
Lin was arrested at his home Tuesday morning by FBI agents, and was to appear before a federal magistrate Tuesday afternoon. His arraignment is scheduled for Jan. 3. He is charged with two counts of computer fraud.
His lawyer, Raymond Wong, said Lin denies introducing any malicious programming into the computer system. Wong said his client would have known that such an action could be quickly linked to him.
“He is an administrator; if something happened, it could be traced back,” said Wong, who added Lin has years of “excellent performance reviews.”
Medco spokeswoman Soraya Balzac said the arrest “sends a strong message that there is zero tolerance for this type of…
