“The Montana Veterans Affairs Health Care System is sending out letters to 1,501 Montana veterans, whose personal information was involved in a recent privacy breach, officials said.”
“The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Health Administration said Thursday in a news release they were notified June 4, by former contractor Benefits Recovery Specialists Inc., of ‘a data incident involving VHA files from the Montana VA Health Care System’ and was taking action to protect veterans’ personal information…”
“They said BRSI discovered malware or malicious software, April 30, impacting certain BRSI company systems and notified federal law enforcement. BRSI hired cybersecurity specialists and began an internal investigation taking the affected systems offline to remove the malware. A forensic investigation found that on or about May 29, an unauthorized actor deployed Maze ransomware within BRSI’s systems.”
“Additionally, VHA files containing personal information provided to BRSI as part of prior VA contracts may have been among those accessed April 20-30. BRSI did a review of VHA files and determined the personal information impacted by this event to be full name, Social Security number and facility…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA sending letter to 1,501 Montana vets about privacy breach – By Phil Drake, July 24, 2020. Great Falls Tribune.
