Identity thieves target used hard drives
With most people prone to saving personal information to their computers, storage devices have quickly become the bulls’ eye for cybercrime.
COMPUTER distributor Xperien is raising the alarm on con artists now targeting second-hand hard drives to commit identity theft.
With most people prone to saving personal information to their computers, storage devices have quickly become the bulls’ eye for cybercrime.
Xperien CEO Wale Arewa explained hard drives are targeted by syndicates because they are easy to resell.
‘One would expect people and companies to wipe these crucial devices clean before donating or selling them.
‘I urge organisations to fully erase all personal data from all hard drives – and that means more than simply hitting delete.
‘Many people will presume that pressing the delete button on a computer file means that it is gone forever.
‘However, this information can be easily recovered.
‘We live in a world where personal and company information is a highly valuable commodity.’
He said data must be erased using one of the three methods in order to be compliant with the Protection of Personal Information Act 2013 (PoPI) and to ensure that a company’s intellectual property does not fall into the wrong hands.
‘Advance digital data elimination allows the hard disk drive to be reused, making this method the most environmentally compliant.
‘Alternatively, physical shredding of the hard disk drive crushes and mangles it into tiny 25mm pieces, this eliminates the data and renders the hard disk drive unusable.
‘Finally, one could consider degaussing.
‘This process uses a magnetic charge to eliminate data and it also destroys other components of the hard disk drive ensuring double protection.’
