Given the amount of personal and customer data contained on an old hard drive, hard drive destruction is a necessary part of any data security policy. All businesses should destroy their old hard drives before disposing of them. A fast and efficient way to ensure your old hard drives are properly destroyed is to use a service that specializes in the destruction and also disposal of electronic data storage media.
It is important to choose a service that physically destroys hard drives using high-security data destruction machines. Some services destroy hard drives by punching holes in them. However, data is still retrievable with this method. Ensure the service you use has machines that crush, mangle, and render hard drives unreadable.
Don’t Make the Mistake of Using Hard Drive Erasing Software
There are a number of hard drive erasing programs that are available on the internet. These programs claim to destroy electronic files. However, there is no guarantee that the data is not recoverable. Hackers and other malicious users can use forensic software tools to recover data. Nothing can take the place of physical hard drive destruction. Having your hard drive destroyed using a high-security hard drive destruction machine is the only proper way to ensure sensitive data cannot be recovered.
Witnessing the Destruction of Your Hard Drives
Some companies offer shipping services in which you can ship your hard drives to their facility. Be sure you send your hard drives via bonded courier. The service you use should provide you with a Certificate of Destruction. Another option is to have you or a representative from your company witness the destruction in person. It is worth the extra effort to ensure your company is complying with regulations regarding proper data destruction.
Are you aware of your responsibilities when it comes to the proper destruction of electronic data storage media? Contact us today. We can securely destroy all of your sensitive data storage media as well as create your corporate data destruction policies.
