FYI: [Here we go again] VA "Personal data missing again!"

[SHORTY LONG]

05 FEB 07

Personal information of up to 48,000 veterans may have been stolen from a portable
hard drive reported Friday, 02 FEB 2007 by the Department of Veterans Affairs and
a Lawmaker.

On 22 JAN 07, an employee at the VA medical center in Birmingham, Ala. reported that
an external hard drive was missing that backed-up information from the employee's office
computer.

The department said that it may have contained data from research projects; and the
employee said also, that the hard drive may have had personal information on some veterans,
and that parts of the data were protected.

The Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson said that the VA and the FBI are investigating.
While the results of the investigation are pending, the VA is planning to send individual
notifications, and to provide a year of free credit monitoring to anyone whose information is
compromised!

The Hon. Rep. Spencer Bachus R-Ala., said that the personal information of up to
"48,000 veterans" was on the hard drive, and the records of up to [20,000] of them
were not encrypted!

OHIO

 

[ElvisG]

This doesn’t surprise me. Congress really does need to do some restructure with the VA. It’s sad but true that the majority of people that work for VA are idiots. The only helpful information I have ever had was from volunteers. I just don’t why but VA looks so promising for veterans but it fails in a lot aspects.

To be honest, I don’t know if it’s the VA business model, civilians that run it, or because it’s a government entity that needs to be fix but something is broke. Sorry SHORTY I got off track a little bit.

When is someone at VA going to say, hey, why is privacy information getting stolen so much? I mean it’s not rocket science to set-up security measures to prevent these kinds of issues.

 

[SHORTY LONG]

ElvisG, no apology necessary, but I thank you just the same.
I share your overview about the "VA!"

Rock & Roll E

 

[SHORTY LONG]

"update"

14 FEB 07

The Department of Veterans Affairs began notifying 1.8 million veterans and doctors Monday 12 FEB 07,
that their personal and business information could be on a portable hard drive that has been missing
from an Alabama hospital for nearly three weeks. That's more than 37 times more people than
authorities initially believed were affected!

The hard drive that went missing earlier, may have contained Social Security numbers and other personal
information for about 535,000 individuals, and billing information on 1.3 million doctors nationwide, the VA said.