Indian charged of planting virus in network; pleads not guilty

WASHINGTON: An Indian computer programmer, working with a US mortgage giant, has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges that he had planted a virus on the company's 4,000 computer servers nationwide.

Rajendra Sinh B Makwana has been indicted by the federal authorities for computer intrusion arising from the transmission of malicious script to the mortgage giant Fannie Mae's computer servers, said the US Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.

Makwana was fired by the company last October. The 35-year-old was arrested on January 7 and released by the court a day later on $ 100,000 bond.

The US attorney, in his charges, alleged that had the viruses been releases, the company would have lost millions of dollars as a result of the disruption in its nationwide services.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. He was a contractor employee working at Fannie Mae's Urbana, Maryland facility from 2006 to October 24, 2008. The name of the contractor has not been released by the Department of Justice.

Makwana, a computer programmer proficient in a computer language designed to operate Fannie Mae's 4,000 computer servers, and was part of a group that created computer scripts for the company. As such, Makwana had access to its servers throughout the US, the indictment said.