Cat blamed as server wiped at US medical facility

A US Veteran Affairs server was accidentally taken down for a few hours in September after a cat walked across a keyboard.

The Register reports that a feline friend has been causing mayhem. A US medical facility in Kansas City, Missouri had its US Veteran Affairs server cluster wiped after a cat walked across a technician’s keyboard.

During a meeting, it was apparently brought up that the technician’s cat had wiped out the server profiles from a cluster. An estimated 100 people attend these routine meetings.

However, the Department of Veterans Affairs has made no mention of the cat involved in the incident. Speaking with The Register, a representative from the Department of Veteran Affairs, Terrence Hayes, said:

“On September 13, 2023, the Kansas City VAMC [Veterans Affairs Medical Center] 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.”

Cat at the center of server wipe at Kansas City facility

Firefly AI/Wikicommons

The incident happened in September, it took down the server for around four hours while the team tried to fix it. Assistant Secretary of IT at Veterans Affairs, Kurt DelBene responded to the incident with a dry “This is why I have a dog”. The Register has confirmed that DelBene has a dog which can be seen in the background of his video calls.

Cats and keyboards have become a running joke online. Outside of the meme Keyboard Cat, there are multiple products and methods of removing the feline companions from the surprisingly warm and comfortable keyboards.

These include fake laptops, or keyboard decoys that are regularly seen on certain Reddit threads, as users try to get their furry companion to let them type freely once more.

While the data was recovered, the cat remains at large and could strike again.