VA loses laptop with 1.8 million records

The Veterans Administration has lost yet another laptop and this one contains a staggering 1.8 million records. Personnel at the Birmingham Alabama VA Medical Center lost the laptop on January 22, but the first reports didn’t come out until February 2nd.

Now the agency is reporting that the laptop possibly contains much more data than previously thought. The names and Social Security numbers of more than 535,000 could be on the laptop along with the addresses and Medicare codes of more than 1.3 million non-VA doctors. Medicare codes could be used by hackers to submit fake reimbursement orders to the government.

The VA is sending out letters to warn the affected veterans and doctors about the laptop loss. There is no word about how the laptop was lost or whether there was any encryption on the drive.