Indian National Attempted Sabotage of Fannie Mae Computers
Indian National Attempted Sabotage of Fannie Mae Computershttp://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=cybercrime_and_hacking&articleId=9127040&taxonomyId=82&intsrc=kc_top
"January 29, 2009 (Computerworld) A former Unix engineer for the Federal National Mortgage Association, better known as Fannie Mae, has been accused of planting malicious code on the corporation's network that was to "destroy and alter" all of the data on the company's servers this Saturday, court documents show.
Rajendrasinh Babubhai Makwana, 35, was indicted Tuesday by a federal court on a single charge of computer intrusion, according to documents released yesterday.
Makwana, an employee at Omnitech Systems Inc., was let go from his contract position at Fannie Mae's Urbana, Md., data center on Oct. 24, 2008, after he had "erroneously created a computer script that changed the settings on the Unix servers without the proper authority of his supervisor," read a complaint sworn by FBI Special Agent Jessica Nye earlier this month. Makwana had created that settings-changing script on Oct. 10 or Oct. 11, as much as two weeks before he was fired, Nye said."
"An Indian national, Makwana was released on $100,000 bond. He also surrendered his passport and was barred from using computers or the Internet except for use in any job he holds as well as to communicate with his family in India.
Makwana faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted.
Fannie Mae opened the 130,000-sq.-ft. Urbana data center, which is just outside Frederick, Md., in August 2005, and at the time touted its energy-savings construction and operation."
COMMENTS
First, I almost puked that an alien was working for a government entity such as Fannie Mae when temporary alien workers are only permitted to work in America when there are no qualified available Americans to do the work. There are thousands of Americans out of work now and quite a few are Network Engineers that should have been working in that spot.
Secondly, Omnitech Systems, Inc appears to sponsor the aliens in this case from India to enter and work in the United States, and then they contract with major corporations such as Fannie Mae, and then the H1B works as an employee of Omnitech systems, Inc at the American work site in this case, at Fannie Mae's Urbana, Md., data center.
Everyone notice that Fannie Mae did not sponsor this individual just like most major American corporations that hire H1B's, they contract companies like Omnitech Systems just for the usually cheaper labor. If Congress wanted to cut down on the hiring of H1B aliens in America, just enable laws that say they must sponsor them instead of hiring them through second parties like Omnitech Systems, Inc. There is a lot of legal requirements that must be met to provide a H1B visa such as comparable pay, and the fact that there are no Americans available to do the job, and other issues where big American companies do not want to get involved, but feel it is ok to allow a second party to do everything at arm's length from themselves. There are also heavy fines to abuse the H1B visa program. I am not sure but I think the sponsor is also liable to send the alien back to their home countries. And we all know that most major American organizations frown on travel expenses.
Fourth, this guy or girl was just indicted and paid $100,000 bail and is still allowed to use a computer at work. If he developed and installed the malware to bring down Fannie Mae for a week or more, then that is not a good idea. I would not have him near a computer and I would have his laptop taken from him. I do not think the individual is a happy camper and he or she could sabotage others while in America. If I was the employer, I would hand the individual a broom and enable the individual access where there were no computers..
Fifth, Fannie Mae gave this individual way too much access authority and it seem that they were not on top of their security access privileges. If it was necessary to give this individual God's authority to do everything they were wrong to place an alien in that position instead of an American. The senior security person at Fannie Mae probably should be fired whether an American or alien.
Sixth, Barack Obama, if you want to hire one million Americans right away, then send the H1B visa holders in America back home and enable Americans to obtain the jobs replacing the current H1B visa holders. Each year Congress has enabled hundreds of thousands of H1B visas and the visa holders are allowed to remain in America 6 years and sometimes longer.
Ok, if you want business as usual then bring more H1B's into America, more Americans will be without jobs and have very little money and can only buy necessities if that, and the American economy will continue to go into the dumpster.
Like the H1B, there are about 22 other visas that bring in temporary alien workers to work in America. One brings in Australian workers. Lets send the alien temporary workers back to their home countries.
posted by God Bless America - Bob @ 4:59 PM
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