Personal information on some 867,000 individuals in 580,000 service member households may have been compromised by SAIC personnel working in Shalimar, Fla., on a Tricare contract. The McLean, Va.-based SAIC works under contract to provide scientific, engineering, and technical services primarily for government agencies. The company revealed the problem today and has not said when it identified the potential compromise. It has been working with DOD to “mitigate any potential inconvenience or harm” to affected individuals since the discovery that SAIC employees were processing data containing names, addresses, social security numbers, birth dates, and possibly some health information using an unsecure server. The employees also may have transmitted some information in an unencrypted form over the Internet. SAIC states that these actions violated its security policy, and the company has placed the employees on administrative leave pending a full investigation. SAIC says its “detailed forensic analysis” of the server indicates that no personal information has in fact been compromised. However, SAIC is offering all affected individuals a free, one-year membership in an identity theft restoration service provided by Kroll Inc. Notification letters are being sent to each adult or to each family potentially affected. (SAIC has posted additional information online.)
When the Space Force discusses the cyber threats faced by the service or the commercial satellite providers it uses, it typically frames the issue as a nation-state one. But for cyber defenders in the commercial space sector responsible for day-to-day operations, the reality is rather different: Like other providers of…
