Loophole closed

Medical images and sensitive personal data belonging to to U.S. service members are no longer easily accessible online, according to officials who sought to determine how it was available in the first place.

Finding the loophole

According to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and co-chair of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, the internet service provider that carried the images no longer appears to be operating. Warner said Friday that researchers working on the issue could no longer access the information.

“Sensitive medical records belonging to men and women in our armed forces are no longer an open target on the internet.”

– Senator Mark Warner

“It’s certainly a relief to know that sensitive medical records belonging to men and women in our armed forces are no longer an open target on the internet,” Warner said in a statement provided to Military Times.

The data was not owned by the Pentagon

Until late last week, personally identifiable medical imagery from three Army health facilities — Fort Belvoir Community Hospital in Virginia, Ireland Army Health Clinic, Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina — could be found online by anyone with the know-how to snoop and a special viewer to see the images.