WOULD you trust a teenager to wipe your company computers before shipping them off to a charity in Africa?
Well believe it or not that’s what a senior partner of a small investment firm did. Without knowing what software his teenage son used or if it had even worked, he sent the computers off into unknown hands.
Many organisations have their own unique methods of destroying private electronic data but in this age of information and technology simply hitting the delete key will no longer suffice.
Recycling old computers may help the environment but if you haven’t wiped the hard-drive correctly you may find important information ends up in the hands of fraudsters.
Computers, hard drives and other devices need to be destroyed properly. This requires technical knowledge and the appropriate software to erase all traces of data.
There are many businesses out there that previously relied on the trusty hammer to destroy all traces of data, but are now unsure of what to do with old computers and equipment. Sorry folks, stock piling is not the answer.
According to a recent report by the Financial Services Authority, too many organisations were not disposing of customer data correctly. Examples of bad practice included the stockpiling of obsolete computers and other portable media for too long and in insecure environments. Firms were also relying on others to destroy the materials without proof it was carried out correctly.
In many of these cases, ignorance is bliss but in the current economic climate, companies can’t afford to leave data disposal to chance.
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