"CA will survive, but it's definitely a black eye for the corporation," Rummel said.

After the guilty pleas, CA issued a statement saying that it is "a dramatically different organization than we were two years ago." In addition to focusing on a growth strategy, Swainson and his management team have set up an organizational structure "that promotes integrity, compliance and good governance," CA said.

Rich Ptak, an analyst at Ptak, Noel & Associates in Amherst, N.H., said Swainson has furthered Kumar's efforts to improve customer relationships and change the widely held view that CA wasn't friendly toward its users. "That old image of CA seems to be in the past," Ptak said.

Kumar and Richards are scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 12. Both men could face up to 20 years in jail, but the maximum sentence will likely be reduced because of their guilty pleas, said a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

CA, meanwhile, is still subject to a deferred prosecution deal. Under that deal, it agreed to pay $225 million into a fund for compensating victims of its fraudulent activities and take various steps to strengthen its corporate governance procedures. If CA is deemed to have complied with its obligations after an 18-month period that ends in September, the U.S. attorney will seek to dismiss all fraud charges against the company.