At a special hearing called by Rep. Steve Buyer, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, information security experts from industry told lawmakers that it is not too late to fix the problems at Veterans Affairs that led to a May 3 data theft. They agreed that the VA’s federated approach is wrong. VA chief James Nicholson testified on Capitol Hill June 8 that the VA had launched—he emphasized “launched”—a shift toward centralized control of information security. Buyer (R-Ind.) plans to hold additional hearings this month.
Today’s armament maintainers are tasked with performing flightline (O-Level) maintenance with an assortment of legacy test sets that greatly limit the ability to quickly and efficiently verify armament system readiness, diagnose failures, and ultimately return the aircraft to full mission...