According to CNN, a laptop containing information on 26.5 million Veterans and their spouses has been recovered since it was stolen on May 3rd from a VA employees house. The government does not believe that any of the information was accessed on the laptop.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/29/vets.security.ap/index.html
It is pretty obvious that this is the best thing that could have happened on this issue, but I am feeling a false sense of relief. Now that the computer has been found it seems like they care more about dealing with the VA analyst than they do about dealing with fixing their own security issues. For nearly the past 4 years the analyst has had permission to take home data that included names and social security numbers of veterans and NOW once something goes wrong they seem to care.
Instead of dealing with this one analyst, they need to deal with their own practices and wonder why they have allowed someone to leave the VA office for the past 4 years with such sensitive data. Laptop security has been one of our biggest security issues lately and everyone, including the government, needs to improve it. We dodged the bullet this time, but who knows if we will be this lucky next time.
http://www.essentialsecurity.com/howitworks_laptop.htm
