Kansas City, Missouri – A curious feline is being held responsible for a four-hour IT outage that disrupted operations at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Kansas City, Missouri.
According to initial reports published by The Register, the incident occurred when a cat leaped onto a technician’s keyboard, inadvertently triggering the deletion of the server cluster. This unexpected feline intervention led to a significant interruption in the center’s IT systems.
The disclosure of this peculiar event came from an inside source who participated in a routine weekday meeting where the US government department reviewed the recent IT disruption. During the meeting, Kurt Delbane, the assistant secretary for information and technology and CIO at the Department of Veteran Affairs, reportedly commented on the incident, humorously remarking, “This is why I have a dog.”
The Department of Veteran Affairs issued an official statement regarding the incident, stating, “On September 13, 2023, the Kansas City VAMC experienced an issue with image transfer within Vista due to an inadvertent deletion of server profiles. The issue was quickly identified and the system was restored within four hours. There have been no further issues or direct impacts to veterans from this incident.”
Vista, short for the Veterans Health Information System Technology Architecture, comprises over 180 clinical, financial, and administrative applications integrated within a single database, playing a vital role in managing healthcare information for veterans.
While the circumstances surrounding the IT outage have been acknowledged by the VA, they refrained from providing additional commentary on the feline involvement in the incident.
