VA Information Security Essay

Introduction “VA’s mission is to promote the health, welfare, and dignity of all veterans in recognition of their service to the nation by ensuring that they receive medical care, benefits, social support, and memorials.” (Information Security: Veterans Affairs Needs to Resolve Long-Standing Weaknesses, 2010, p.1) The VA information system security program (ISSP) aims to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA) of the VA’s information systems and business process. This program provides information of plans, policies and procedures to protect the VA’s system user’s privacy data. Also according to the Department of Veterans Affairs: Information Security Program (2007) this program provides a detailed list of the security

“These categories will enable information that requires security to be consistent, whether in a mainframe, client/server, workstation, file cabinet, desk drawer, waste basket, or in the mail.” ("Department of Veterans Affairs: Information Security Program," 2007) This is why the VA has categorized their information in the following three categories:
1) VA Sensitive Data/Information-which includes the individual identifiable information and health information. The impact level of sensitive information is considered high.
2) Administratively Confidential Information- also known as any information uses daily in the VA and that cannot be classified as sensitive or public like Operational business information and reports, Non-VA information that is subject to a nondisclosure agreement with another company and VA phone books. The impact is considered low or

Once a strategic plan is in place Policies and procedures need to be implemented so that your employees are aware of how we will meet our goals. In the VA strategic plan for 2010-2014 their goals were people-centric, results-driven, and forward-looking. With these goals they were looking to “ increase Veterans’ access to benefits, eliminate the disability claims backlog, and end the rescue phase of Veteran homelessness.” (Department of Veterans Affairs: Strategic Plan FY 2010-2014, 2010) This strategic plan has driven the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to focus even more on other areas that need attention. The strategic plan for 2014-2020 focuses on first, empowering veterans to improve their well-being. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs FY 2014-2020 Strategic Plan (2014) they are driven to end Veteran homelessness by 2015, help them improve their career readiness to reduce unemployment and obtain a more personalized patient driven health care. Second, VA will be enhancing and Developing Trusted Partnerships with the DoD and Non- profit organizations, among others so that they can better serve our veteran’s needs. Lastly, VA would like to manage and improve VA Operations to Deliver Seamless and Integrated Support so that it can become a place where you would like to