Stolen VA Laptop Found

Associated Press is reporting (via Forbes.com)

The government has recovered the stolen laptop computer and hard drive containing sensitive data for up to 26.5 million veterans and military personnel, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said Thursday.

Nicholson said law enforcement officials were still investigating to determine whether data from the equipment, which included names, birth dates and Social Security numbers, had been duplicated or utilized in any way.

So far, he said there have been no reports of identity theft stemming from the May 3 burglary at a VA employee's Maryland home.

Update: In a report in Bloomberg.com the FBI seems to claim that the data wasn’t accessed by the burglars.

`We can be relatively certain'' that the data ``was not compromised,'' said William Chase, head of the bureau's office in Baltimore, where the computer was recovered.

Chase and Chief Dwight Pettiford of the U.S. Park Police said a tip from an informant, alerted by posters and the promise of a $50,000 reward, led to the computer and hard drive being turned over to the FBI.

Update 2: Vets groups still want the free credit monitoring.