- http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060623/D8IDIV580.html
June 22, 2006
"…In all, five government agencies have reported data theft, including the Veterans Affairs Department, which on May 22 acknowledged losing data on up to 26.5 million veterans.
Among them:
- At the Agriculture Department, a hacker who broke into the computer system, obtaining names, Social Security numbers and photos of 26,000 Washington-area employees and contractors…
- At Health and Human Services, personal information for nearly 17,000 Medicare beneficiaries may have been compromised in April when an insurance company employee called up the data through a hotel computer and then failed to delete the file.
- At Energy, Social Security numbers and other data for nearly 1,500 people working for the National Nuclear Security Administration may have been compromised when a hacker gained entry to its computer system last fall. Officials said June 12 they had learned only recently of the breach.
On Thursday, a House panel was cautioned that credit monitoring alone may not be enough to protect Americans whose names, birth dates and Social Security numbers were compromised at the hands of the government…"
"Where do you want to go today?" (…to another planet, please):
Sailors' Social Security nos. on Web site
- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060623/ap_on_…_pe/navy_data_3
June 23, 2006
"WASHINGTON - The Navy has begun a criminal investigation after Social Security numbers and other personal data for 28,000 sailors and family members were found on a civilian Web site. The Navy said Friday the information was in five documents and included people's names, birth dates and Social Security numbers. Navy spokesman Lt. Justin Cole would not identify the Web site or its owner, but said the information had been removed. He would not provide any details about how the information ended up on the site. Cole said there was no indication so far that the information was used illegally, but individuals involved were being contacted and encouraged to monitor their bank accounts and credit cards… The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the breach. The initial discovery was made by the Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command, which routinely monitors the Internet for such problems…"
OMB Lays Down Federal Security Law
- http://www.techweb.com/article/printableAr…_section=700028
June 28, 2006
"The White House has given federal agencies 45 days to beef up safeguards to prevent citizen identities from being lost or stolen, the latest reaction to the numerous data disclosures suffered by the government in May and June. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memorandum last week to all federal departments and agencies reminding administrators of long-standing data security requirements, but also made new recommendations. Among them: encrypt all data on mobile computers and devices, only allow remote access to government networks using token- or card-based two-factor authentication, and log all instances when data is extracted from federal databases. The government has been embarrassed by several prominent data breaches, including the massive May VA incident, the loss of two Federal Trade Commission (FTC) notebooks, a large disclosure of U.S. Navy personnel identities, and a breach at the Department of Agriculture. The OMB's timetable means that agencies have until August 7 to comply with the security standards laid out in Deputy Director for Management Clay Johnson's memo* …"
Stolen VA Computer Recovered
- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/29/…in1763751.shtml
June 29, 2006
"The government said Thursday that it has recovered the stolen laptop computer containing sensitive information for up to 26.5 million veterans and military personnel. The FBI said a preliminary review found no evidence that anyone accessed Social Security numbers and other data on the equipment… The FBI, in a statement from its Baltimore field office, said a preliminary review of the equipment by its computer forensic teams "has determined that the data base remains intact and has not been accessed since it was stolen"…"
Navy probes data leak on 100,000 sailors, Marines
- http://tinyurl.com/s3lx5
July 7, 2006
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Navy said on Friday that it was trying to determine how personal information on more than 100,000 Navy and Marine Corp aviators and air crew wound up on a publicly available Web site for more than six months… Those affected are believed to include any Navy or Marine Corp aviator who has served during the past 20 years.The same information was also disseminated late last year to Navy and Marine Corps commands on 1,083 program disks mailed out as part of the service's Web Enabled Safety Program. The Naval Safety Center found out about the problem and removed the information from the web site on Thursday, a week after the recovery of a stolen Veterans Affairs Department laptop that contained sensitive information on more than 26 million U.S. military veterans and service members. The center is now recalling the mailed program disks. As in the case of the Veterans Affairs laptop, the Navy said there was no evidence that any of the disseminated data has been used illegally. But the service is notifying those affected by mail and setting up a 24-hour call center to handle queries. Safety center spokeswoman Evelyn Odango said the problem appeared to be an errant file. "The information was inadvertently included in a file that was then posted on the Web," she said. "We found out about it through a Web site user and it was removed immediately."
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