Millions of Veterans Data Exposed to Identity Theft
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The Department of Veterans Affairs today announced that a computer containing personal, identifying data for over 26 million American veterans was stolen from a VA employee’s home this month. They have set up a site to help those affected by this data breach. The compromised data included names, social security numbers and the dates of birth. This is enough information for unscrupulous individuals to use for identity theft.
A VA employee took files home as part of department work on a data collation project to simplify some VA processes. Subsequently, someone broke into the employee’s home and stole the data. The career employee, a data analyst, was not authorized to take the files home, said VA secretary Jim Nicholson in a teleconference with reporters.
Update: There are currently two companies who are providing discounted identity theft protection for veterans, LifeLock and MyPublicInfo.
Source: Government Computer News
Protect yourself and your family, guaranteed!
Written by MCruz on May 22nd, 2006 with
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