On Wednesday, the Navy reported that the personal data of more than 130,000 sailors was compromised after one of their employee laptops had been breached. According to a news release, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services (HPES) first alerted the Navy of the breach back in October that an employee under contract with the branch reportedly had their computer compromised. Following the alert, HPES and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) conducted an investigation which concluded on November 22 that sensitive information, including names and social security numbers, of 134,386 current and former service members in the Navy was in fact accessed by unknown personnel.
“The Navy takes this incident extremely seriously- this is a matter of trust for our Sailors,” Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Robert Burke said in the statement.”We are in the early stages of investigating and are working quickly to identify and take care of those affected by this breach.”
While the Navy is working to find out more information and specifics about the breach, it says that they are working to contact all the soldiers affected in the next few weeks to alert them of the incident. They plan to reach out by phone, letters, and email.
The statement also said that at this point in the investigation, they found “no evidence to suggest misuse of the information that was compromised.”
Infosecurity Magazine obtained a statement from HPE on the matter with them refusing to give specifics about the latest breach. The statement said: “The security and privacy of our clients is a top priority for HPE. This event has been reported to the Navy and because this is an ongoing investigation, HPE will not be commenting further out of respect for the privacy of Navy personnel.”
The U.S. government and the military have been the victim of breaches in the past. Just last year, the Office of Personnel Management announced that it had been breached twice in 2015 alone, which resulted in the personal data of more than 20 million current, former, and prospective Federal government employees and contractors had been stolen, revealing highly sensitive information such as social security numbers.
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