VA Data Stolen???

[Terry Yager]

So how come it takes the Gov't over two weeks to get around to informing me (& 26.5 million other vets) that sensitive personal data is now in the hands of (private-sector) criminals?

http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1134

--T

[Erik]

Longer then that, really, but you're probably lucky - My guess is that the laptop was the target and it was quickly formatted and re-sold.

[Terry Yager]

Probably, but still, it's hard for me to imagine the burglar(s) wiping the drive without at least looking around on it, just out of curiosity. If they figgered out what they have, the data would be worth a whole lot more money than the value of a hot laptop, provided they have the right connections to unload it.

--T

[Unknown_K]

You should be asking what a government employee was doing with all that data away from the office in the first place. Could it be he wanted to sell it to make a few bucks (since he knew it was valuable) and could just say it was stolen?

[mbbrutman]

Guys, please, keep the black helicopters down to a minimum. It was some poor slob who took work home with him. It happens all of the time. Unfortunately, that was work better left at the office.

"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence."

[NathanAllan]

So how come it takes the Gov't over two weeks to get around to informing me (& 26.5 million other vets) that sensitive personal data is now in the hands of (private-sector) criminals?

http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1134

--T
I found out about it in the news two weeks ago and just got the letter yesterday. It was a hot topic in my network security class. It's called a social engineering attack, or a kind of one. It doesn't take much tech knowledge to steal a laptop. I'm a vet so I've been busy locking down on my identity. I know you all probably know it, but here's a tip. Any accounts you have, if they are online or can be, make your username and password and lock them away. It keeps anyone from making a new one and keeping you from it. This way, your account can't be created or accessed and you not know about it. That security class has made me a bit paranoid.

[Terry Yager]

Guys, please, keep the black helicopters down to a minimum. It was some poor slob who took work home with him. It happens all of the time. Unfortunately, that was work better left at the office.

"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence."

Criminal incompetence, in this case. It was a crime for him to take his work home. The laptop thief merely re-stole his stolen database.

--T

[Terry Yager]

Just out of morbid curiousity, what would the data (enough information to steal the identities of 26 million Americans) be worth on the (underground) open market? How much d'ya think Bin-Laden would pay, or even some major crime organization? I'm guessing that the bidding starts in the 7-digit range.

--T

[tgunner]

How can a single laptop hold the personal information of 26 million people?

[Erik]

How can a single laptop hold the personal information of 26 million people?

That's not all that hard, really. Figure a typical data record is about 2-5K bytes with normal information (i.e. no pictures of the person, etc.) so that maths out to about 50-125 GB of data. My laptop has a 100GB drive and that seems small to me. . . ;)

[Terry Yager]

Although a modern laptop might have a large enough drive, in this case, it was not just the laptop that was stolen, but an additional external drive as well. Here's the FAQ:

http://www.firstgov.gov/veteransinfo.shtml

--T

[tgunner]

"Although a modern laptop might have a large enough drive, in this case, it was not just the laptop that was stolen, but an additional external drive as well."

Ah.