Link to Fannie Mae Hacker Story

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=81025&catid=158

This video will be on the New Maverick web site in the next two weeks as well. If you have any questions, or require more assistance, contact Maverick.

Maverick Analysis: Lessons From The Fannie Mae Hacker

Rajendrashinh Makawa, a 35 year-old Indian Unix system administrator contractor for OmniTech, was arraigned this week in Maryland for attempting to hack Fannie Mae - the company he was subcontracted to. After being fired in the early afternoon of October 24th, Makawa was allowed to continue working. By the time he turned in his badge and laptop in at the end of the day he had written and implanted four separate scripts in the Fannie Mae system. These were designed to wipe all of the data from the over 4,000 servers and storage devices in a revenge attempt. Luckily, another sys admin uncovered one of the malicious scripts and the plan was thwarted.

The biggest lesson to be learned from this incident is in the behavior of Fannie Mae and OmniTech during the dismissal of Makawa. Makawa's access should have been revoked just prior to his dismissal and he should have been immediately escorted from the building. Instead, he was allowed to finish his day and - in barely 4 hours' time - put thousands and thousands of Fannie Mae clients' records and millions of the company's dollars at risk.

Remember: the termination process should take place swiftly and should begin with the removal of all access of the person to be terminated.

30JAN09-02: No Hacking Required - U.S. Consulate in Israel Auctions Sensitive Information

The U.S. consulate in Israel held an auction in December 2005 to get rid of old furniture and reportedly sold cabinets containing hundreds of files with Social Security numbers of U.S. Marines and state department staff stationed in Israel. The files also included U.S. State Department bank account numbers and documents tracking the U.S. funding of local political movements. Among the files was a dossier marked "Secret" detailing an encounter between a U.S. Marine and a young Israeli woman in a Jerusalem hotel bar.

The woman who bought the filing cabinets, an American-Israeli, recently returned them to U.S. control but only after the Israeli police intervened and threatened her with unspecified charges.


SOURCE: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/us-consulate-in.html

30JAN09-01: Russian "Cyber-Militia" Takes Kyrgyzstan Offline

Kyrgyzstan's two main Internet service providers -- ns.kg and domain.kg – recently came under a massive online assault. Details have emerged that the cyber-attack was orchestrated by Russia-based "cyber militia," shutting down more than 80 percent of Kyrgyzstan's bandwidth. Speculation is that the attack was meant to thwart Kyrgyzstan's embattled political opposition -- which depends on the Internet to organize -- or to pressure Kyrgyzstan's government, which hosts a U.S. airbase outside of the capital, Bishkek.

SOURCE: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/cyber-militia-t.html

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