More than 300GB of potentially sensitive data was discovered on five second hand storage devices that were advertised as having been wiped of previously stored information.
“Our findings underline that data erasure is critical before any hardware devices are disposed of – personal computers, servers, hard disk drives, USBs and even MP3 players,” said CK Lee, country manager, Kroll Ontrack Singapore.Kroll Ontrack – a leading provider of data recovery and information management products and services, is warning companies to be extra vigilant when disposing of computer equipment in light of recent tests carried out in its labs
It recently conducted a little experiment in Singapore. Specialists from the company purchased five storage devices from a popular international online auction site to see if there was any sensitive data that could be recovered from the supposedly “wiped” devices.
The specialists found more than 300GB of data including personal and corporate proprietary information including Microsoft Office documents, applications, databases, e-mails and photos.
“Simply pressing the ‘delete’ button or using other basic overwriting techniques only removes the pathways to the data and not the data itself and it is essential to remember this when preparing equipment for sale or disposal,” Lee added.The five devices were from different parts of Singapore and included two hard disk drives from a server in RAID configuration, a server, a desktop HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and a laptop HDD.
Recoverable data poses risk of security breaches if it falls into the wrong hands. It is crucial for individuals and businesses to ensure that data is destroyed before disposal. Without the correct data erasure procedures, proprietary information becomes vulnerable.
Kroll Ontrack provides several options for data erasure such as Ontrack Eraser Software and Ontrack Eraser Degausser. Both solutions set out to destroy data in a fast, secure and user-friendly way.
