Ex-engineer pleads innocent to server bomb charge

The engineer accused of trying to destroy data on 4,000 servers operated by Fannie Mae has pleaded innocent, court documents show.

Rajendrasinh B. Makwana, 35, entered his plea during an arraignment hearing on Friday before a federal magistrate judge in Maryland.

Makwana, who worked under contract at the Federal National Mortgage Association, better known as Fannie Mae, was terminated Oct. 24, 2008, after he was accused of creating a settings-changing script without his supervisor's permission. Within 90 minutes of being fired, Makwana allegedly added another, malicious script to a Fannie Mae server. The second script, hidden within a legitimate script that ran each morning on Fannie Mae's network, was designed to disable monitoring alerts and all log-ins, delete the root passwords to the 4,000 Fannie Mae servers, erase all data and backup data, power off all the servers and then disable the ability to remotely switch on the machines.

The malicious script, which was set to trigger on Saturday, Jan. 31, was found by another Fannie Mae engineer within days of Makwana's firing.

The script would have "caused millions of dollars in damage and reduced if not shutdown [sic] operations at [Fannie Mae] for at least one week," the government's complaint read.

Makwana's employment record was a matter of some confusion last week. Although an affidavit submitted by the FBI in early January said Makwana was employed by OmniTech Systems Inc., the company disputed that, saying Makwana had not been in their employ at any time, but was instead a "pass-through" contractor paid by another company.

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