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GCN Home > 06/20/06 web stories

Veterans’ benefits agency tightens data security

By Mary Mosquera, GCN Staff

The Veterans Benefits Administration has examined data and systems used to test applications before they are deployed, as well as inventoried databases that contain sensitive veterans’ information and the interfaces and data feeds that update the databases, to ensure that veterans’ data is secure, an agency official told lawmakers today.

VBA, an administration of the Veterans Affairs Department, also is accelerating annual privacy and security training so that all employees will have completed it by the end of this month, said Ronald Aument, VA’s deputy undersecretary for benefits.

These are some of the technical and policy changes that VA and its administrations have implemented since the recent theft of sensitive data of 26.5 million veterans, reservists and active-duty military personnel from a VA employee’s home.

“VBA is thoroughly examining every aspect of our information security program, our processes and our procedures to ensure that sensitive veterans’ data is neither mismanaged nor used for any unauthorized purpose,” Aument told a joint hearing of House Veterans Affairs subcommittees on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs and on Economic Opportunity.

VBA also is assessing policies and procedures related to the release of data protected by the Privacy Act and will make recommendations to strengthen protection, including periodic recertification of the business need for the release.

Earlier this month, VBA suspended work-at-home arrangements for employees providing disability claims processing. Those employees were to return to work in VA offices and return all claims folders and computer equipment while VBA evaluates ways to protect sensitive data transported to and from offices.

Shortly before the theft in May, VBA began to push implementation of public-key infrastructure technology as part of VA’s effort to support more secure electronic transactions and e-mail.

To notify 17.5 million veterans so far, the VA has spent $7 million for the letters, $7 million for call centers and $200,000 a day to operate the call centers, he said. VA has requested reprogramming of fiscal year 2006 funds to pay for notification.

More news on related topics: IT Security, Business Process Management, Management, IT Management



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