A small Texas business that didn’t meet requirements to qualify as a small business. Wonder who owns this company and who recommended them. Another VAST ripoff…….that led to VAST breaches of veteran’s data!

From Boston.com

It found that the VA put out multiple and inconsistent changes to the contract awarded in 2002 to VAST, a small business joint venture based in Texas, for computer service work aimed at fending off computer hackers.

According to the findings, the VA:

–Spent more than $35 million for equipment and supplies under the contract that it cannot account for.

–Hastily increased the scope of the contract several times, bringing the total value of the contract from $102.8 million to $250 million with little thought or oversight. “This made the contract an open checkbook … with little assurance of price reasonableness and no planned funding.”

–Did not ensure that the joint venture, VAST, met requirements to qualify as a small business.

–Made overpayments on the contract as high as $8.5 million.

–Did not conduct required background investigations on the contract employees.

In addition, because the department spent money on the contract so quickly, it was left temporarily without a defense against hackers after the 10 year contract was allowed to expire prematurely in 2005.

In recent weeks, VA officials have faced a fresh round of bipartisan criticism over data security, with auditors telling Congress that gaping holes persist and that most VA data remains unencrypted.

At a hearing last month, Maureen Regan, counselor to the VA inspector general, said the department still hasn’t fully implemented any of its recommendations from reports dating back to 2001.

The department also hasn’t adopted five key recommendations issued shortly after the massive data breach last May involving veterans. That data was later recovered.

The IG report was publicly released Feb. 26 and first noted Tuesday by McClatchy newspapers.