Lots of companies promise that poking a hole through the hard drive is enough to prevent data theft. It’s not.
“In between each and every hole on every platter will be a lot of data: your data, your company’s data — or potentially more problematic — your customers’ details, which you were trusted with on the basis that you would protect it,” writes Robinson Lovatt for Spiceworks.
As Lovatt points out, the only place on the drive where data is actually destroyed is where the holes are. The rest of the magnetic disk is intact. All the stored information is still there.
Cyber thieves have learned how to read these damaged drives to extract sensitive information.
“When disposing of an old PC, there is really only one way to securely erase the information on the hard drive: You must destroy the magnetic platter inside,” says a tutorial at SnapGuide. The guide shows how to remove the hard case around the hard drive to get at the magnetic disk inside and then how to render it unreadable.
If all you need to do is destroy a hard drive every once in a while, that may work. But if you need to destroy a lot of hard drives or perform this kind of a security measure on a regular basis, this isn’t practical.
A hard drive crusher takes the work out of complete security. All you have to do is remove the hard drive. That usually takes a minute or two in a desktop. Just open the tower and pull the drive out.
Then, drop the drive into the crusher. It’s complete security and complete destruction.
Need to know more about the ultimate in hard drive destruction? Contact us for details.
