Forensic investigators have concluded that one or more Satyam employees were involved in installing sophisticated sypyware applications on World Bank workstations.

Nevertheless, hundreds of Satyam employees executing a "knowledge transfer" were granted access to the bank's information systems up until September 30, 2008. In addition, a number of former Satyam personnel are currently working for the financial institution under the auspices of various external contactors.

The widening scandal has also implicated former chief information officer, Mohamed Muhsin, who was accused of purchasing preferential stock options from Satyam while awarding major contracts to the company.

"You purchased shares of stock in companies that had then current or prospective business interests in your...unit," concluded the bank's Vice President of Human Resources. "Further, you failed to recuse yourself from personal involvement in Bank activities involving at least one of these business entities...Moreover, there is reasonably sufficient evidence showing that you purchased some of the shares of stock under preferential terms."

The World Bank has responded to the spyware debacle by terminating its lucrative contract with Saytam. As IT Examiner previously reported, the company won a five-year contract from the world body in 2003 to implement an enterprise resource planning solution that included extended document management and an integrated messaging system. Satyam admitted the deal had lapsed, but was not willing to disclose any further information.  However, it should be noted that the company recently requested arbitration over the "wrongful termination" of its contract.

Satyam has consistently denied that any of its employees installed spyware on the World Bank's network.

"Like other public and private institutions, the World Bank has repeatedly experienced hacking attacks on its computer systems and is constantly updating its security to defeat these. But at no point has a hacking attack accessed sensitive information in the World Bank's treasury, procurement, anti-corruption or human resources departments," the company said in a statement.

Mike Haro, a senior security analyst with SOPHOS, told Fox News that it was naïve to believe that the attacks weren't targeted. According to Haro, "the reality with this kind of security breach is that you don't know what you don't know." X

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