Veteran Affairs: We're more secure
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is "pretty confident" the agency will not have another largeÂ data breach like the one in MayÂ that could have exposed the personal records of 26.5 million military veterans and family members, the agency's chief information officer said Monday. The VA has taken severalÂ steps to improve its securityÂ since the breach, said Robert Howard, who was appointed the VA's assistant secretary for information and technology just days before a VA laptop and hard drive were stolen from an employee's home. "There really is an increased awareness throughout the VA," Howard said. "We still have a lot of work to do in that area, but we've clearly improved the awareness of folks with respect to treating information the same way they'd want their information treated." Howard, speaking before the American Council for Technology's Industry Advisory Council in Washington, D.C., also talked about the VA's IT reorganization, started in March, and accelerated by the data breach. The VA is moving to centralize its IT staff, instead of having divisions within the agency control their own IT functions, addressing a long-time criticism from the U.S. Congress and government auditors. A major cybersecurity concern is employees "not thinking" about risks and the VA is working to educate workers, Howard said. "What leaps right out at you is employee carelessness," he said. "We've all been there." Howard, a former major general in the U.S. Army and a former vice president with defense and transportation technology vendor Cubic Corp., called the changes happening in the VA IT organization "very dramatic." Along with the reorganization, Howard now has authority over the VA's entire IT organization, he said. "No more excuses," he said. "We've got everything we need. We've got the organization, we've got the authority, we've got the money." Among Howard's goals are standardization and interoperability of IT systems within the VA, as well as a strengthened focus on security, he said. The ultimate goal is to use IT to better serve VA customers, he added. Part of the reorganization is focused on creating the "gold standard" for data security, Howard said. He was appointed to his position May 1 and the breach happened May 5. VA announced the breach May 22. "I didn't find out about [the breach] until the 16th of May," he said. "That tells you something about our process." Police recovered the laptop and hard drive in late June, and computer forensics experts determined the personal data had not been accessed. But the VA has made several changes, including encryption on laptops not directly used for medical procedures, Howard said. The breach "was a real eye-opener, for government and probably for industry as well," he said. "We're encrypting everything in sight." Howard said he believes VA should improve the annual grade it receives in IT security given by the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee. The agency has received a failing grade in four of the past five years. When a reporter noted the agency's score had not been very high in recent years, Howard responded, "It is now." But Howard said he expected the agency's grade wouldn't be perfect either. "This stuff's not going to happen overnight," he said.
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PHILADELPHIA A new study says diabetics treated by the VA health system get better care than diabetics under managed health .
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We made it back into the house last night. There were National Guardsmen at key checkpoints in Poway that were set up to protect neighborhoods from looters. These young men were carrying fully loaded M16s. For a quick second I thought I was in a war zone. That was incredibly intimidating for me.
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The precious balance between individual freedoms and national security has never been defined in absolutes. In times of war, when our security is threatened, people are asked to make concessions with their freedoms.
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Securing essential protections is the best strategy.
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Veterans groups say they will keep pressing for improved data security &amp;#151; and free credit monitoring &amp;#151; after the government found the stolen Veterans Affairs laptop computer containing sensitive data on 26.5 million people.
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CUMBERLAND, Md. -- When Army reservists from the 372d Military Police Company are welcomed home Friday at a belated public ceremony, the loudest cheers will probably come from the local chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, who say they're heeding their vow to never again let one generation of veterans be shunned by another.
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The House of Representatives on  Friday approved significant increases in funds next year for  domestic security and veterans care in a challenge to President  George W. Bush&#39;s more limited budget requests.
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As part of its ongoing efforts to ramp up security, the Department of Veterans Affairs has just finished installing encryption software on 15,000 laptops.
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WASHINGTON Outgoing Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi (prin-SIP&#39;-ee) has been regarded as a relentless advocate for veterans during his tenure.
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Al-Qaida terrorists looking for a U.S. military target might try to attack a Veterans Affairs hospital rather than a base or other high-security installation, the FBI and Homeland Security Department warn in a new nationwide terrorism bulletin.
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Concerns raised over senior officers' threat to patient confidentiality.
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(InfoWorld) - The cybersecurity provisions in a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) bill approved by Congress late last week are in some ways too narrow and in others too broad, a cybersecurity group says. The Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act, largely focused on veterans' health-care programs, includes a section on information security requiring the VA to report data breaches of any "sensitive" personal information, potentially including breaches where only veterans' names were exposed, said Liz Gasster, general counsel for the Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA), a trade group representing cybersecurity vendors. The bill, passed by Congress late last week, requires the VA to report breaches of sensitive personal information to Congress and requires VA Secretary R. James Nicholson to create plans for notifying affected veterans, as well as offering credit monitoring and identity theft insurance to affected veterans. If the VA ends up notifying veterans every time a document with just names on it is lost, veterans may become numb to breach notifications that contain real dangers, Gasster said. Thirty-four enacted state data breach notification bills require that a name be coupled with other data, such as an unencrypted Social Security number, drivers' license number or financial account number. "Essentially, the loss of a list of names on a piece of paper constitutes a data breach under the law, which seems far too broad," she said. "Clearly, your name is not sensitive personal information." The VA announced in mid-May that a laptop and hard drive containing the personal information of 26.5 million military veterans and their spousesÂ had been stolen from an employee's home about two weeks earlier. Police later recovered the hardware, and VA officials said the personal information had not been compromised, but the breach set off a firestorm of criticism from Congress. In addition to its potentially broad definition of sensitive personal data, the bill does not exempt the VA from reporting data breaches if the information was encrypted, Gasster said. In supporting a national data breach notification bill, CSIA and other groups have called on Congress to exempt encrypted data from notification rules, saying the exemption would encourage companies and government agencies to encrypt more data. The lack of an exemption "seems like it deprives the benefit of encryption from the VA," Gasster said. Although the bill's language on personal sensitive information and encrypted data is too broad, in some ways the bill doesn't do enough to protect consumers, Gasster added. The bill only addresses VA data breaches, not breaches at other government agencies or private companies. CSIA and some consumer groups have pushed for a national data breach notification bill after a rash of breaches in early 2005, but Congress failed to pass a notification law. While the VA's large breach generated significant attention from Congress, other agencies have lost dozens of laptops containing personal information in recent years, and private businesses continue to have breaches, Gasster said. CSIA wants a bill that would require agencies and companies to take reasonable security measures to protect data, Gasster added. A spokesman for Senator Larry Craig, the Idaho Republican who sponsored the veterans bill, didn't return messages seeking comment on the CSIA's concerns.
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Millions of veterans and active-duty troops whose sensitive personal information was lost by the Veterans Affairs Department will receive some form of credit protection against identity theft, the government said Wednesday.
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Lawmakers say they want to know whether a Veterans Affairs employee was being unfairly blamed for losing veterans&#039; personal information, citing newly disclosed documents showing he had received permission to work on the data from home.
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Jim Nicholson, secretary of veterans affairs, is trying to put a positive public face on his beleaguered agency.
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Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake conceded Wednesday that the agency must do more to reach out to Guard and Reserve troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan about the mental health help available to them.