The services at Medco Health Solutions are responsible for several applications including that of managing bills, rebates and prescriptions called in from doctors, insurance companies and clinical assessments of patients. Another server that was targeted during the investigation was one that let pharmacists check what drugs a patient is currently taking to prevent potential interactions between two or more drugs.

The worker programmed the code to activate on April 23, the day of his birthday. However, the code failed to go off as a result of a coding error. When another computer administrator found the code he was able to neutralize it before anything happened.

Apparently the action stemmed from the public trading of the company in August 2003. During which time Medco Health Solutions was no longer a subsidiary of Merick & Co. Several workers were in fear of their jobs as layoffs started, but only the single employee took such drastic actions.