Indian on US visa accused of Cyber Attack
By Bala Shah

American company Fannie Mae has the same brand recognition as the Tatas and Ambanis in India.  Fannie Mae, as America’s largest mortgage company, gives loans to tens of millions of home owners.  But as the American economy crashed, Fannie suffered huge losses forcing a takeover by the US Govt. An Indian on a H1B visa stands accused of trying to sabotage its computers.

Fannie Mae was created during the Great Depression to help the struggling Americans. Ironically, it was the economic crash last year where it racked up tens of billions of dollars losses, forcing a Government takeover.  In shades of Satyam, Fannie Mae was guilty of some accounting irregularities.

The American Government has pumped in $100 billion into Fannie Mae to keep it going.  Fannie Mae has had to sack many employees and keep a tight control on expenditure.  Many Indians on H1B visas and working for Fannie Mae have been fired.

On Oct 24, 2008, an Indian, Rajendrasinh B. Makwana, was fired from Fannie Mae for changes made to computers without official permission.  Prosecutors now allege that an irate Rajendrasinh,  furious at being sacked,  set up a computer program which would change the passwords of all the 4000 computers and delete all data.  This rogue computer program was set off to go off on Jan 31, 2009 long after the fired techie had left the offices.

By Nov, 2008, this rogue computer program was detected and defused.  If it had not been detected,  it would have caused incalculable damage. A complaint was lodged with the FBI who began a high priority investigation.

Now Government documents show that Rajendrasinh was one of the 85,000 H-1B visas handed out by the US Government every year.  Indian tech companies corner a large share of these working visas.

Now the Dcexaminer is reporting that Rajendrasinh Makwana, an Indian citizen, was on an H-1B working visa.  His employer of 3 years, New Jersey based Marlabs, revoked his H-1B visa after hearing about the alleged cyber attack charges against him.

The US Government grants 85000 H-1B visas every year.  While there is always a push to ‘give American jobs to Americans’  during hard economic times,  such incidents will make the average American very wary of foreign techies on H-1B visas working on their business critical computing systems.

Dcexaminer has no luck getting anyone to comment on the working visa angle. A Fannie Mae spokeswoman declined to comment. Makwana’s attorney ha not replied to repeated requests for comment.

Rajendrasinh has pleaded not guilty to all the allegations.