FAA Hacked – 45,000 Names Accessed

According to Channel Web, the FAA announced this week that a server of theirs was hacked which led to 45,000 FAA employees and retirees to have their social security numbers and names accessed.

“All affected employees will receive individual letters to notify them about the breach,” said the FAA statement. “The FAA is moving quickly to prevent similar incidents and has identified immediate steps as well as longer-term measures to further protect personal information.”

The agency reported that 48 files on the server were accessed by the hackers, two of the files contained every employee’s name and social that was on the FAA’s payroll from the first week in Feb of 2006.

Unfortunately, hacks to the government are not new. Channel Web reports that “one of the most significant in recent years was the theft, in May 2006, of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs laptop and hard drive that contained personal data for 26.5 million veterans and active-duty personnel. That incident spawned an overhaul of the VA’s IT infrastructure and also prompted the resignation of the VA’s general counsel. Later that year, in August, came the theft of a Department of Defense laptop that affected 30,000 Navy applicants.”