Thursday, February 08, 2007

VA, FBI investigate missing hard drive

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs announced last week that an employee reported a government-owned, portable hard drive used by the employee at a department facility in Birmingham, Ala. — and potentially containing personal information about some veterans — is missing and may have been stolen.

The Birmingham VA Medical Center employee reported that an external hard drive was missing Jan. 22. The hard drive was used to back up information contained on the employee’s office computer, and may have contained data from research projects the employee was involved in.

Upon notification that the hard drive was missing Jan. 23, the VA’s OIG opened a criminal investigation, sent special agents to the medical center and notified the FBI. VA’s Office of Information and Technology in Washington, D.C., also dispatched an incident-response team to investigate.

The OIG has seized the employee’s work computer and is in the process of analyzing its contents. VA IT staff is providing technical support in this effort. Analyzing the work computer may help investigators determine the nature of the information the hard drive potentially contained.

Pending results of the investigation, VA is prepared to send individual notifications and provide one year of free credit monitoring to those whose information proves compromised.

In addition to the ongoing criminal investigation, the OIG has initiated an administrative investigation to determine how such an incident could occur. VA will provide further updates as the investigation produces additional information.