Security Basics mailing list archives
VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans
From: "Saqib Ali" <docbook.xml () gmail com>
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 11:14:09 -0800
http://www.full-disk-encryption.net/news/article329.html Associated Press is reporting that a portable hard drive belonging to Veteran's Administration has been stolen. The Official Press Release is available at the VA website. FBI is investigating the incident to measure the extent of impact. VA's Office of Information and Technology is also conducting a separate review. The hard drive contained data on 48,000 veterans, more than half of which were encrypted. So it is expected that no more than 20,000 were leaked. The drive was used to back up information on the employee's office computer. It may have contained data from research projects, the department said.
From VA's website:
On January 23, VA's IG was notified the external hard drive was missing. The OIG opened a criminal investigation, sent special agents to the medical center, and notified the FBI. VA's Office of Information & Technology in Washington, D.C. also dispatched an incident response team to investigate. The OIG has seized the employee's work computer and is in the process of analyzing its contents. VA IT staff is providing technical support in this effort. Analyzing the work computer may help investigators determine the nature of the information the hard drive potentially contained. Pending results of the investigation, VA is prepared to send individual notifications and provide one year of free credit monitoring to those whose information proves compromised. This is the second major data loss VA experienced in within 1 year time frame. Last year, on the May 22, 2006 VA reported losing a laptop with about data on 26.5 million veterans. See Chronology of Data Breaches at Privacy Rights Clearinghouse for more information. US Government's plan to Fully Encrypt all laptops is aimed towards minimizing the impact of theft of laptops or portable storage devices. AP News Article: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SECURITY_BREACH?SITE=FLDAY&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT VA Press Release: http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1287
Current thread:
- VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans Saqib Ali (Feb 05)
- Re: VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans Ed (Feb 06)
- Re: VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans Saqib Ali (Feb 06)
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- Re: VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans Anonymous (Feb 06)
- Re: VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans jfvanmeter (Feb 07)
- Re: VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans Justin Ross (Feb 07)
- Re: Re: VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans security (Feb 07)
- Re: FW: VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans kevin fielder (Feb 07)
- Re: VA Loses another Hard Drive with data on 48,000 veterans Ed (Feb 06)