“Republican members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Tuesday pushed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for answers about a recent data breach that exposed personal details of at least 46,000 veterans.”
“Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), the ranking member of the committee’s subcommittee on government operations, led more than a dozen of the committee’s Republican members, including House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking member James Comer (R-Ky.), in sending a letter to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie on Tuesday expressing concerns around the security incident…”
“The letter was sent over a month after the VA disclosed that its Financial Services Center had discovered that an unauthorized user had accessed an application used to help veterans pay for medical care and diverted funds meant for community health providers, with Social Security numbers among the data compromised.”
“The VA noted in September that the compromised system had been disabled while the VA’s Office of Information Technology conducted a review of the incident. The VA said notifications were sent out to veterans and next-of-kin of deceased veterans whose data had potentially been compromised, and that the agency would provide free credit monitoring.”
“’Although we commend the VA for its apparent quick response in taking the application offline and investigating the breach, as well as its efforts to notify affected individuals, we are concerned about veterans’ personal information being vulnerable and the potential consequences data breaches such as this have on affected veterans,’ the Republican House Oversight and Reform Committee members wrote Tuesday…” Read the full article here.
Source: House Republicans push VA for details on recent data breach – By Maggie Miller, October 20, 2020. The Hill.
