Do You Know When It’s Time to Use a Hard Drive Eraser?

In the data destruction business, the major push is to inform consumers and businesses about hard drive erasers. And the proper ways to destroy their devices once they’re no longer in use. However, it’s important to bring to light that many organizations also hang onto their devices way longer than they should. Because of this, significant breaches are occurring that never should have in the first place.

With the organizational resources available to decision-makers, officials have been facing considerable criticism for simply hanging onto old devices that are easy to hack.

However, it’s easy for the media, the public, and security officials to look at things with critically after the fact. This is something many of us do in our personal lives and throughout every industry.

In a typical office, there are likely

  • A dozen hard drives,
  • Several zip drives, and other random SSD’s

… that they should completely destroy.

There are also likely many employees who quit or who should hand over for destruction any devices they used for work without question.

According to recent reports, Donna Seymour, CIO of the Federal Office of Personnel Management faced questioning before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee regarding the recent breach.

Apparently, the breached computers were so old the organization couldn’t encrypt the sensitive data on them or install the software they normally use to block breaches.

Chinese hackers reportedly stole information from both the Office of Personnel Management and the Federal Government Human Resources Agency. Data stolen included information shared on job applications and resumes, and gathered during security clearances.

Earlier in May of 2016, the SWIFT International Banking Network was compromised.

In the most recent breach, cybercriminals transferred funds illegally to various locations around the world. They gained access to the transfer network through old outdated computers hacked somewhere between 2009 and 2015. Officials say that they neither changed passwords on these computers nor installed any security software even when compromised. There were other vulnerabilities throughout the massive organization’s international network, many due to human error, lack of proper cybersecurity, and outdated equipment.

At Phiston Technologies, we’d like to remind organizations that it’s important to know when to destroy their devices. If you can’t secure a device properly, that makes the device completely useless for most businesses and organizations. Contact us today to get started.

 

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