A four-hour IT disruption at Kansas City (Mo.) VA Medical Center was caused by a cat jumping on an employee's keyboard, The Register reported Oct. 5.
In September, a technician was assessing the configuration for a server cluster when their feline hopped on their keyboard and deleted it, a source who attended a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs IT meeting told the news outlet.
"This is why I have a dog," Kurt DelBene, assistant secretary for information and technology and CIO at the VA, reportedly responded to laughter from those in attendance.
"On September 13, 2023 the Kansas City VAMC experienced an issue with image transfer within Vista (Veterans Health Information System Technology Architecture Imaging) due to an inadvertent deletion of server profiles," the VA said in a statement to The Register. "The issue was quickly identified and the system restored within four hours. There have been no further issues or direct impacts to veterans from this incident."
The agency, however, did not confirm the cat story.