 Some IT folks are just total jerk asses. I was talking with a friend of mine over the weekend who is involved in a legal situation (he's the lawyer) with a former IT contractor who essentially erased confidential information and reset all the passwords in the system. Situations like this aren't uncommon and businesses have to take strong measures to counter malicious activity from former employees.
In most cases larger organizations have a strict security policy whereby all access codes and credentials are deactivated, company property is confiscated or turned in, and ex-employees must sign a written statement saying that they have purged all confidential data from their systems. In more extreme cases a company may go so far as to probe and scan all internal systems in search of logic bombs or other malicious pieces of code, however this practice is rare.
A fine example of how things can go wrong, and better yet the consequences of doing so, is illustrated in the recent account of man who was sentenced to 30 months in jail for planting destructive code in his former employer's computer system. The plot was eventually discovered when the logic bomb failed to "detonate" or execute correctly at the preset time. When asked why he did it the perpetrator stated that he thought he was going to get laid off. Fortunately for the company the guy wasn't as good of a programmer as he thought.
Regardless such behavior tarnishes the reputation of every honest IT worker in the market. I've witnessed and experienced and ever encroaching noose of distrust and precaution when dealing with both systems admins and business owners. This is unfortunate because for any IT project to be successful you must have a large measure of trust and respect from all parties involved. In some way the ever increasing rash of "hacker" stories have contributed to the silent distrust often reserved for those handling large sums of money or the keys to the department vending machine.
Though the accounts are sometimes comical to those of us in the technical world, we must be aware that the proposition of an attack from within can be terrifying to the uninitiated. Heck, it's scary even to someone who knows the risks and procedures all too well. In truth the only option we have to is to conduct ourselves in a professional manner and to make every attempt to root problems before they escalate. Then again that is really the charge of any professional who's given the keys to the kingdom.
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