Companies are putting their secrets at risk if they fail
to completely overwrite hard discs that have reached the end of
their useful lives, according to professional computer
recyclers.
IT departments may be forced to review how they dispose of
unwanted hard drives after a BBC investigation showed that
confidential data is being extracted from some UK hard drives that
are shipped overseas for recycling and disposal.
In the course of its investigation, the BBC said it found “home
addresses, bank account numbers, sort codes, passwords, e-mails
that had been sent and highly confidential information relating to
people’s businesses.”
But computer recycling charities Computer Aid International and
Digital Links International both said they work with professionals
to wipe hard discs as part of their refurbishment process.
Tony Roberts, CEO of Computer Aid International, said, “UK
businesses and organisations, as well as the general public, should
be reassured that there is a safe way of recycling redundant PCs
guaranteeing that information is deleted for good and does not fall
into the hands of criminals.”
Specialist hard drive overwriting company Blancco said PC
manufacturers equipped computers with four types of technology –
device-configuration overlay, jumper settings, host-protected areas
and RAID – that made it difficult for individual users to deploy
software to overwrite drives.
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