Imagine if you threw out that old diary. Put it in the garbage without tearing out the pages. Someone can find out everything. Every secret, every embarrassment. Everything. When we don’t bother to securely erase data, that’s essentially what happens. Only this time, it’ll be someone’s financial or personal info instead of their angsty teen musings.
Let’s look at why stopping someone from finding that info is more important than ever.
The Invisible Trail We Leave Behind
Every single device you have ever had is a digital safe holding a part of you, right? Emails, passwords, bank accounts, and whatnot. But what happens to that when you move on from your device?
Data never really leaves. Even after we delete it, with the right kind of tools (which hackers have a lot of), they can access a lot of the information on these disks. Most of the time, the hard drive is replaced. But in this particular instance. The husband had taken his old drive and just left it with a bunch of other drives that failed.
Why Hitting “Delete” Isn’t Safe
When you delete files or format a device, you might think you’ve removed the information. But you’d be wrong. Although the files are not visible to you, they’re still very much there — on the hard drive. And they remain there until you save new information to the device or drive.
It’s like a pencil on paper. Sometimes, the ‘erased’ pencil marks are faintly visible. And wrongdoers love that. They’re able to exploit the situation and recover files that you think are long gone.
This is where data destruction comes in. It simply means to erase data without a hope of recovery.
Real-Life Consequences of Neglecting Secure Data Erasure
Neglecting proper data removal leads to great risks.
Corporate Espionage: When companies don’t properly delete devices before they sell them, confidential customer data, secret sauce, and business plans are exposed. It ultimately leads to a company’s loss of brand equity and money.
Regulatory Land Mines: GDPR, HIPAA, and others mean that it’s increasingly expensive not to wipe your device.
These are not just horror stories; they happen every day to real people and businesses.
How Secure Data Erasure Works
Secure data erasure uses well-tested techniques to ensure none of your information is still hanging around. Here’s what’s involved.
Overwriting: This process replaces old data with random patterns, making recovery impossible.
Encryption-Based Erasure: Some tools will wipe and then encrypt a storage device instead of simply wiping it for extra security.
Physical Destruction: For especially sensitive information, shredding or smashing up storage hardware can provide additional assurance.
Which approach you choose will depend on what you’re trying to accomplish, but all of the above methods are significantly better than just emptying your Recycle Bin or reinstalling Windows.
Anecdote: A Lesson Learned the Hard Way
Mark, a business owner, recently looked to sell an old desktop computer. He wanted to sell the computer to help give himself some more capital to put towards new software that he wanted to use in his office. Mark believed he would sufficiently protect his personal data on his computer by deleting the files and also felt secure that he had done enough for the next step to protect his data.
Boy, was he wrong? Mark had never been more embarrassed. He lost time with three possible clients and had a very rushed and stressed rest of his day trying to fix his problem. Mark soon realized that data destruction was not something you ignore because it is simply that important!
Final Thoughts
At a point in time when breached databases and cyber instance disasters seem imminent and recurrent, having your precious information fall into the wrong hands just isn’t an option. If you’re an individual bound by the responsibilities and restrictions of data or a corporation hoarding confidential customer information – data disposal is the way to go.
