V.A. Contractor in China Accessed Info

A contractor working for the Department of Veterans Affairs accessed sensitive information from China, according to a report from the department’s inspector general this week. The contractor accessed the department’s network from personally owned equipment he took to China, potentially compromising the system in a place noted for cyberattacks and hacking. (Another contractor did the same thing, but in India.) The IG wrote that the department’s chief information officer “gave verbal instructions for it to cease; however, VA information-security employees at all levels failed to quickly respond to stop the practice and to determine if there was a compromise to any VA data as a result of VA’s network being accessed internationally.”