Several veterans' groups announced Tuesday that they have filed a lawsuit against the VA for failing to protect their personalinformation.

In its efforts to better learn just what information was contained in a duplicate database stolen from the VA employee last month, the VA said it had hired its own independent forensic experts to analyze the original data, Secretary of Veterans Affairs R. James Nicholson said in the statement.

The VA said it has not received any reports that the stolen data has been used for fraudulent purposes.

As for the active-duty personnel whose personal information may have been breached, the VA said that group includes up to 20,000 National Guard and Reserve personnel who were on at least their second federalized active duty call-up as well as 30,000 U.S. Navy personnel. That group could include members of the U.S. Navy who remain on active duty and completed their first enlistment term prior to 1991, the VA said.

"This happened because these individuals were issued a "DD-214" - or a separation from active service notification - by the Department of Defense (DOD) upon completion of their first enlistments," according to the statement. "This triggered an automatic notification to VA that these individuals were no longer on active duty. Subsequent to VA receiving the initial DD-214, these individuals re-enlisted for another term of active duty, meaning their information could still be in VA's data files."