US Department Of Defense Discloses Personnel Data Breach

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th October, 2018) The US Department of Defense (DoD) has detected a breach of personally identifiable information (PII) of its personnel, Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, the Pentagon spokesman, told Sputnik, saying that the DoD was assessing the risk of harm due to the incident and measures to address it.

"On October 4, the Department of Defense identified a breach of personally identifiable information of DoD personnel that requires congressional notification ... The Department is continuing to assess the risk of harm and will ensure notifications are made to impacted personnel whose PII may have been compromised ... While additional information about this incident is being gathered, the Department is assessing further remedial measures," Buccino said late on Friday.

The incident involved the potential compromise of the personnel PII that had been maintained by a vendor providing travel management services to Pentagon, the spokesman pointed out, noting that the vendor had been in charge of a small percentage of the services for DoD.

Meanwhile, media reported, citing a source familiar with the matter, that the breach might have affected around 30,000 personnel members.

The DoD revealed the data breach just days after the US Government Accountability Office issued a report about cybervulnerabilities in major weapon systems the DoD was developing over the past years. The report noted that cybersecurity had not been a priority for the Pentagon until relatively recently.