VA’s Baker briefs Congress on data breaches

In light of two data breaches, VA CIO Roger Baker said employees are not following procedures to safeguard information.

In light of two data breach incidents at the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker described both incidents in a monthly briefing on data breaches for Congress.

Baker said the incidents show that department employees still aren’t following policies and procedures to safeguard information.

The good news is that most employees did follow the rules throughout October, Baker said.

In one incident, a claims examiner at the Department of Veterans Affairs reportedly used a personal unencrypted thumb drive to store veterans records and then lost the drive, NextGov reports. The data included files on 186 veterans and contained a range of sensitive personal information, including medical and financial records, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers.

In a another data breach, a worker printed out records containing personal information on veterans and took them home, NextGov reports.

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