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Walter Reed Medical Suffers Data Breach
David Utter
Staff Writer
2008-06-04
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File sharing blamed for compromise that may have exposed patient data from the military health system with an outsider.
 | | Walter Reed Medical Suffers Data Breach |  |
Famed Walter Reed Army Medical Center apparently picked up a virulent little bug on its network. The Center advised visitors to its website that approximately 1,000 beneficiaries of the Military Health System suffered the disclosure of personally identifiable information.
As part of the original statement about the breach, comments from Hospital Commander Patricia Horoho preceded the advisory. Those comments were subsequently removed, but still appeared in a cached version of the page.
That note served as an update to internal Walter Reed personnel about the situation and the ensuing media coverage of the breach:
Walter Reed officials were notified of a possible disclosure of personally identifiable information through a Peer to Peer (P2P) network of approximately 1000 Military Health System beneficiaries. The information did NOT contain any protected health information such as medical records, diagnosis or prognosis for patients. The individuals impacted have been identified and we are taking a proactive approach to contact them to assist in providing fraud protection services.
I need everyone to ensure that they are not loading or down loading programs that are not authorized by the command as it increases our vulnerability and possibly can cause a breach in protected information being shared. The first question someone like the House Oversight Committee may wish to ask Col. Horoho is why a computer on Walter Reed's network engaged in P2P activity. There may be an acceptable explanation for this; P2P is not inherently a bad tool, but it can enable risky behavior on the part of an unwary user.
Asking for compliance with download policies needs to be complemented with tools and staffers to enforce those policies. Even the most professional environments are populated with normal people, some of whom carry an attitude of invulnerability when it comes to downloading anything and everything online.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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