Thread: Another Stolen VA computer

http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/08/ ... ter001.cfm

Published: Tuesday, August 8, 2006

VA suffers yet another stolen computer
Information of 38,000 veterans in Pennsylvania is missing

The Washington Post


WASHINGTON - Another Department of Veterans Affairs computer is missing, this one containing the personal information of as many as 38,000 patients at VA hospitals in Pennsylvania, the department said Monday.

Local police, the FBI and the VA inspector general are investigating the disappearance last week of a desktop computer from the Reston, Va., office of Unisys Corp., a subcontractor that assists in insurance collections for VA medical centers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said in a statement.

Unisys notified VA on Thursday.

Early indications are that the missing records involve veterans treated within the past four years at the two Pennsylvania medical centers, including 5,000 patients in Philadelphia and 11,000 in Pittsburgh, as well as 2,000 other patients who have died, Nicholson said. VA also is investigating whether the computer contained information on 20,000 other veterans treated in Pittsburgh.

The computer is believed to have contained unencrypted patients' names, addresses, Social Security numbers, birthdates, insurance information, dates of military service and claims data that might include medical information, the department said.

"The VFW is insisting that the administration pay for a free credit monitoring service for those thousands of veterans who may be at great risk to identity theft and fraud through no fault of their own," said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Edward Davies, a managing partner a Unisys Federal Systems, said the company would offer free credit monitoring to veterans, but had not determined how long the service would last or who would provide it.

The data breach follows the disclosure in May that a laptop and external hard drive containing sensitive personal information on 26.5 million veterans and active duty military personnel had been stolen from the home of a VA analyst.

Authorities later recovered the computer equipment and said the data had not been compromised. Police charged two men with the theft Saturday and said it appears to have been an ordinary burglary.

Simple question...with all the news media attention re the other stolen computers, wouldn't one think that security for all such equipment would be at the highest level, now?

silly me.

First time shame on them.
Second time shame on us.

Does anyone get the feeling that the repeated "stolen" data scenario may be an orchestrated event aimed at convincing the masses that we need to change our method of storing personal data ... like on a biometric card? Just my paranoid mind working over time I guess.