Contract Worker Arrested for Theft of Computer with Veteran's Personal Information

The computer stolen from Unysis containing the personal information of thousands of veterans has been recovered, and a suspect has been arrested.

Jonathan D. Silver, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting:

A Washington, D.C., man has been charged with stealing a computer containing personal data about thousands of Pittsburgh-area veterans from a private contractor for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Khalil Abdullah-Raheem, 21, was charged Wednesday in federal court with theft of government property, the VA's Office of Inspector General announced yesterday.

Link to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story, here.

This development highlights the fact that when a security compromise occurs - it frequently comes from within an organization. When this occurs - it often doesn't matter how tight security procedures are - because the person had access to whatever was compromised.

For a previous post, I wrote about how the Secret Service is studying this problem, link here.