AP: VA Hard Drive With Personal Data Missing

[Eugene]

VA Hard Drive With Personal Data Missing
By Associated Press

February 3, 2007, 12:33 AM EST

WASHINGTON -- A portable hard drive that may contain the personal information
of up to 48,000 veterans may have been stolen, the Department of Veterans
Affairs and a lawmaker said Friday.

An employee at the VA medical center in Birmingham, Ala. reported the external
hard drive missing on Jan. 22. 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.

-snip-

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.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-security-breach,0,5453844.story

[Beetwasher]

1. WTF AGAIN????? Is This Fucking Deja Vu???

WTF is going on w/ this shit? Seriously, this is some fucked up shit right here.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Somebody...

Is paying good money for this information. That's what is going on.

[salin]

6. Given this is the second time at the VA - and most of those were

*not* encrypted - and folks still keep the date on lap tops and still take those home - suggest that you are correct.

Unacceptable!

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

11. These IT practices...

With sensitive, need-to-know data, fly in the face of long-established best practices of the IT industry. This is exactly the sort of thing that created IT data policies, the myriad and labrynthine Group Policies of the Windows Server world and Active Directory, the security models of **ix...I could go on.

The DoD is presently putting on a worldwide full-court-press for data security everywhere its data touches, and it ain't exactly pretty. Looks like some of the other industries, especially the VA, need some of that as well.

[NYC]

3. Over 100 million security breaches.

http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm

[Melynn]

4. Why is it always vets?

Seems suspicious to me.

[OllieLotte]

5. Those people can't be trusted with hard drives. n/t

[truthisfreedom]

7. Moral of the story:

Don't enlist.

[midnight]

8. They will probably find the data in the closet again.

[LiberalFighter]

9. Why is the data being backed up for that computer?

Shouldn't those computers be getting the data off the server and not be accessible off the local drive? The backups should be done from the mainframe or server.

In regards to Social Security Numbers. They should split up the numbers and code them and then use a routine to recreate the SSN when needed. Then if the data is stolen the SSN would not be readily determined by the average person.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Maybe they would be better off backing the data on reel-to-reel tapes

Those are not used as they once were.

[bobthedrummer]

12. "research projects" as if the continuous data thefts from many sensitive

databases aren't bad enough, particularly when it comes to OUR military and their families, then to hear that what is officially denied (to cover-up historic unethical, criminal r&d in many fields) is revealed that you and your loved ones may indeed have been or are part of so called "research projects" or collateral damage of the fruits of labor of Daddy WarBucks but you aren't privy to the personal info because it is hidden behind a classification shield that protects criminals-WOE.

Then this data can be bought and sold and available to anyone with any agenda including real enemies foreign and domestic.

HIPAA is a farce, especially when it comes to "research projects".

The positive aspect of data theft is that the perpetrators of crimes, including unethical and criminal "research projects", are revealed.

[bobthedrummer]

13. Datatheft link 2005-2007-this one will certainly be added

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/Datathefts.php