Man accused of infecting Fannie Mae's computers hired by tech company
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
November 10, 2009
A former Fannie Mae contract worker accused of leaving behind a virus designed to wipe out the mortgage giant's computer network has been hired by Sun Microsystems, court documents said.
Rajendrasinh Makwana has been out on bail since February, when he was indicted on computer intrusion charges. Late last month, his attorneys asked for and received permission from a federal judge in Maryland for Makwana to move to Wauwatosa, Wis., for a job on a Sun Microsystems' project with General Electric.
Makwana, an Indian citizen, was in the United States on an H-1B visa sponsored by New Jersey-based Marlabs, the company's director told The Examiner.
He now works for Sun Microsystems, which recently contracted him out to General Electric for a two-day project, a GE spokesman confirmed in an e-mail. Makwana no longer is working on any GE project. Sun Microsystems declined to comment.
On Oct. 24, 2008, Makwana was on his third year on a contract through Marlabs at Fannie Mae, when he changed computer settings without permission from a supervisor and was fired, court documents said. He worked in Fannie Mae's Urbana, Md., offices and had access to all of the federally created mortgage company's 4,000 servers.
After being terminated, the company allowed Makwana to maintain his high-level access for nearly four hours, authorities said. During that time, he allegedly tried to a hide a code in the server software that was set to activate the morning of Jan. 31.
Had it not been caught months before the virus went live, it would have "caused millions of dollars of damage and reduced if not shut down operations at [Fannie Mae] for at least one week," an FBI agent wrote in a sworn statement. Engineers, the agent wrote, would have had to comb each of the company's 4,000 servers to restore the mortgage data.
The virus was discovered "by chance" when a senior engineer scrolled down to the bottom of a blank page of computer code and found it, court documents said. An Internet Protocol address connected to the code was eventually linked to Makwana's company-issued laptop, the agent wrote. Makwana has pleaded not guilty and his trial is scheduled to start Nov. 20.More from Freeman Klopott
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