The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced that it will provide a year of free credit monitoring services to veterans whose personal information may have been stolen when an analyst in the Veterans Benefits Administration had a disk drive loaded with information on 26.5 million vets stolen from his home.
The department is soliciting bids for a comprehensive credit-monitoring package and VA said it would send a letter around mid-August to affected veterans explaining credit monitoring and how to enroll or opt-in for services.
Secretary Nicholson earlier announced personnel changes in the Office of Policy and Planning, where the breach occurred, and the hiring of a former Arizona prosecutor Richard Romley as a special advisor for information security.
VA is also mandating cyber security and privacy awareness training for all VA employees, and requiring that an inventory be taken of positions requiring access to sensitive VA data, requiring that every laptop in VA be reviewed to ensure that security and virus software are current and that no unauthorized software is present.