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Stolen VA Laptop Recovered

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the vets-less-nervous dept.

lancejjj writes "Remember how the VA was pinning the theft of 26.5 million veterans' personal records on a hard working-but-renegade employee whose laptop was stolen? Surprise! It turns out that the employee had written permission to bring the sensitive data home. Fortunately, the laptop has been recovered. It is still unclear how the laptop was recovered, or if any of the veterans' personal data was leaked."

4 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing taken by paganizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I believe it said on the FBI's report that it looked like the data had not been looked at.

    --
    Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
  2. I'm sure it's safe by jeffmeden · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There is no way the thief who had it thought to himself "Hmm all these VA logos, some huge files with a bunch of names and 9 digit numbers. I obviously have nothing important here, I should just return this to the rightful owner." I mean it's not like this was all over the news or anything. Where would he get an idea like 'steal the identities of 26 million veterans'??? I know I can sleep a little easier (mostly because I was never in the armed services). On a more serious note, why aren't the headlines reading "VA wrongly accused employee of negligence, prepared to take full blame"? That seems to be the gist of this event.

  3. Re:Data Wasn't Accessed by ewhac · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The data probably wasn't accessed. If the thief knew what they had, and was at all clever, they could have pulled the drive, performed a raw sector copy, and put it back. Poof! No date changes. I'm sure the FBI forensics team will be checking for this possibility.

    Schwab

    --
    Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
  4. I smell a fish... by indigence_is_best · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My data just happened to be on that hard drive, so I am a little upset about it to say the least. We in the armed forces have been told that the individual was definitely NOT supposed to take that data home. It even says so on the VA website reguarding this incident. http://www.firstgov.gov/veteransinfo.shtml If he had written authorization to do so, then that is a completely different story, and all of us that were affected should be even more angry. There are procedures in place for bringing ANY government property home; whether it be DATA or PHYSICAL media. Especially privacy act information.

    So which is it? He was or he wasn't allowed to? It is a bit too convenient for my taste that the laptop was recovered so magically and with the data intact.

    This kind of back-and-forth "truth" on these kinds of issues gets very old very fast.

    Smells fishy...