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Fannie Mae Worker Indicted For Malicious Script

Posted by Soulskill on from the good-thing-their-engineers-bailed-them-out dept.

dfdashh writes "A former Fannie Mae contractor has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Baltimore, MD for computer intrusion. He attempted to propagate a malicious script throughout the company's 4,000 servers. The DC Examiner has details of the incident: 'Had this malicious script executed, [Fannie Mae] engineers expect it would have caused millions of dollars of damage and reduced if not shutdown operations at [Fannie Mae] for at least one week. ... The virus was set to execute at 9 a.m. Jan. 31, first disabling Fannie Mae's computer monitoring system and then cutting all access to the company's 4,000 servers, Nye wrote. Anyone trying to log in would receive a message saying "Server Graveyard." From there, the virus would wipe out all Fannie Mae data, replacing it with zeros, Nye wrote. Finally, the virus would shut down the servers.'"

5 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting Comment in TFA by tristanreid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Of course it isn't verifiable, but I thought this was interesting:

    H1B#36a: "What wasn't reported was that the contractor was fired for writing a script poorly, that caused the failover over of a number of High-Availablitity production servers. His "landmine/timebomb" script was found through his same poor scripting skills. Whatever doping manager that hired that guy should be fired too, along with his director and VP!"

    -t.

  2. Re:Disappointing... by anagama · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Them loosing their records would simply mean that suddenly the banks would run out of 'liquid assets' to make loans with. Who do you think that would hurt: The average joe or the banks?

    It seems to me that banks making loans over the last four years IS THE major problem. Had they not been able to, we wouldn't have had a baseless boom, Angelo Mozillo, a gazillion dollar bailout of the wealthiest individuals, and schemes to assist the most foolish "housing investors" -- all at my expense. I too am rather disappointed the script was found and I don't even have a mortgage. I refused to get caught up in the housing bubble choosing instead to wait for a return to normalcy, which turned out to be a mistake. What I should have done is bought a house way more expensive than I could afford on a negative amortization loan and let the government modify my interest rate and principal balance. I now realize that in America, prudence is punished and stupidity rewarded. So yeah, I'm actually very depressed the script didn't execute.

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    What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
  3. Re:My goodness! It might have... by hey! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...turned Fannie Mae into a financial failure

    ... which it never was during the 30 years from 1968 to 2000, roughly when banking deregulation took effect. It may be that such an institution is a bad idea, but you have to consider that financial institutions of all kinds are in desperate condition as well, so you can't use the financial disasters of 2008 as proof that Fannie is any worse an idea than, say, a private investment bank.

    The idea that Fannies failure shows that it ought never have been, applied consistently, would argue for nationalizing banks. I, as one who has been a staunch liberal though the long winter of liberal dispute, think nationalization is a terrible idea. This is not because the government is bad and business is good, but because government and business would be indistinguishable, leaving nobody to watch the foxes in the chicken coop.

    All in all, I think the widespread calamity in the financial sector more probably indicates that the particular kind of banking deregulation practiced in the post Gramm-Leach-Bliley era has at the very least unintended consequences.

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    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  4. Re:Disappointing... by anagama · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So if Fannie Mae had NOT been able to buy the conforming loans, banks making stupid loans would have had less money available to them because they'd have to hold the conforming loans, and as a result, those banks would have made fewer stupid loans. Sounds to me like FM was part of the problem. Honestly, I'm pissed. I'd like to see the entire banking industry lined up against the wall, because all it has amounted to recently is a Federally sanctioned highway robbery program targeted against people who live within their means and act responsibly.

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    What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
  5. Re:Well, no, you still won't own your house by CrazedWalrus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You have no idea how right you are:

    http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/12/02/2008-12-02_it_took_90_minutes_for_daily_news_to_ste.html