US military personnel data compromised

data belonging to about 4.9 million active and retired US military personnel may have been compromised after backup tapes containing the data went missing recently, reports Computer World.

The information on the tapes was from an electronic healthcare application used to capture patient data. It does not include bank, credit card or other financial data, according to a statement released by Tricare, a healthcare system for active and retired military personnel and their families.

My San Antonio reveals that a Tricare statement says the risk of harm to patients is judged to be low, despite the data elements involved, since retrieving the data on the tapes would require knowledge of, and access to, specific hardware and software, as well as knowledge of the system and data structure.

Vernon Guidry, a spokesman for SAIC, a McLean, Virginia-based scientific, engineering and technology applications firm, could not say when the data from the backup tapes was compromised.

Both SAIC and Tricare Management Activity are reviewing current data protection security policies and procedures to prevent similar breaches in the future, says Dark Reading.

The two firms say they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the data loss.