The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Management on Sept. 14 announced a data breach of about 46,000 veterans' personal information.
VA's Financial Services Center recently discovered that unauthorized users gained access to one of its online applications, which they used to attempt to reroute payments to community healthcare providers for veterans' medical treatments. The hackers used the application to change financial information and divert payments from the VA.
After discovering the incident, the FSC took the application down and reported the breach to VA's Privacy Office. The FSC also alerted affected individuals of the potential risk to their personal information and is offering free credit monitoring services to individuals whose Social Security numbers may have been compromised.