Sunday, September 17, 2006

Was the VA Data Breach a Threat, or Not?

First a laptop containing 26.5 million veteran's information was compromised - then we were told it had been recovered from teenagers - and finally, the FBI thinks the data wasn't compromised?

Is the government positive the data wasn't breached?

Guard My Credit File.Org published an interesting analysis of this:

In May, the Veterans Administration was forced to announce that a computer containing the names, Social Security Numbers, and other personal information of 26.5 million veterans was missing. The laptop computer had been stolen from the home of a VA data analyst. As bad as the breach was, the VA was able to announce that the computer was recovered last month. Even more important was word that came from the FBI that there was no evidence that the file containing veterans’ information had been accessed. But not so fast. The VA now apparently wants to turn over a copy of the stolen database to a private company, without the permission of impacted veterans. Based upon this, the only logical conclusion is that FBI is not sure if the computer’s data was actually breached.

Very interesting analysis, here.

Unfortunately - with the record number of breaches being reported (recorded by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse) - many people probably have had their information taken more than once. When they become a victim of identity theft - will anyone be able to determine - which breach the information came from?

The truth is that billions are made from selling personal information - and the people making all the money off of it - want to keep doing so!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

re: The truth is that billions are made from selling personal information -
You do make it sound tempting but I'll stick to the 9 to 5 job I got...