Ah, the risks of disgruntled terminated employees.
A federal jury convicted computer programmer Rajendrasinh Babubhai Makwana, age 36, of Montgomery County, Maryland, yesterday of computer intrusion arising from the transmission of malicious script to Fannie Mae’s computer servers.
The verdict was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Makwana was a contractor working at Fannie Mae’s Urbana, Maryland facility from 2006 to October 24, 2008. Makwana was a UNIX engineer who worked on Fannie Mae’s network of almost 5,000 computer servers.
According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, Makwana was fired on October 24, 2008 and told to turn in all of his Fannie Mae equipment, including his laptop. On October 29, 2008, a Fannie Mae senior engineer discovered a malicious script embedded in a routine program. A subsequent analysis of the script, computer logs, Makwana’s laptop and other evidence, revealed that Makwana had transmitted the malicious code on October 24, 2008 which was intended to execute on January 31, 2009. The malicious code was designed to propagate throughout the Fannie Mae network of computers and destroy all data, including financial, securities and mortgage information.
Makwana faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz scheduled sentencing for December 8, 2010 at 9:30 a.m.
Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Maryland