« Previous Post | Blog Home | Next Post »
VA loses another hard drive
Posted on Feb 6, 2007 by Tom Fragala
I have written a lot about the VA in the past (see here). Everyone knows they had a laptop (and, don't forget, external hard drive) stolen last year with data on 26.5 million vets and active military. Well, they are at it again. They lost another hard drive with data on 48,000 vets. This time it was a backup drive from an Alabama facility. Let me guess, they will offer free credit monitoring for a year for those effected. Sorry, it's pretty much useless, but it seems to keep people quiet. Read more about this latest data breach here. The VA should read and distribute my free article on preventing laptop theft. I address the issue of backup drives, too.
Filed under: Data Breach, Identity Theft
Tags: data theft, security breach, VA, veterans
Comments
Marilee Veniegas, Essential Security Software on Feb 8, 2007
We entrust the government with so much sensitive information, shouldn't they be even more careful than private commercial firms with this sort of information? Jim Nicholsen of the VA said just a few days prior to the hard drive loss http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1287 :
"VA is unwavering in our resolve to be the leader in protecting personal information, and training and educating our employees in best practices in cyber and information security. We have made considerable progress, but establishing a culture that always puts the safekeeping of veterans' personal information first is no easy task."
Security and Risk prevention isn't an easy task, but the VA doesn't have a great track record. To my tally that's 26,548,000 pieces of sensitive data the VA's been careless with they can do better http://www.essentialsecurity.co/news.htm?id=200
Marilee Veniegas, Essential Security Software on Feb 12, 2007
Just a few days later, we're finding out that it's worse than intitially reported by the VA. The loss could be up to 10 times worse http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1294
"VA and VA’s Office of Inspector General have learned that data files the employee was working with may have included sensitive VA-related information on approximately 535,000 individuals."
Terrible.
Post a Comment