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Editor's introduction:- When you leave
your house - do you close and lock the front door? - or do you leave it ajar
in the hope that a kind passing stranger might do it for you... Your discarded storage devices can reveal many secrets that you may not want anyone else to know. |
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![]() secrets of a thousand data recoveries by Simon Steggles, Director of Disklabs - November 9, 2006 70% of re-sold hard-drives and memory cards contain pornographic material according to research carried out on 1,000 hard-drives over the course of a year by Disklabs Data Recovery and Computer Forensics. In addition, the company recently purchased a selection of storage media comprising of 100 hard-disk drives and 50 memory cards and proceeded to process a sample batch to test what data was still retrievable from them. The results were worrying as documents such as CVs and accounting spreadsheets (including names and mobile numbers) were easily accessible. Perhaps even more worrying was the fact that many previous owners had not deleted temporary Internet files. This means that any new, unscrupulous owner could access personal financial details, such as credit card numbers and could then go on to order goods from Internet pages by simply changing the delivery address. Many of the sampled selection also contained pornographic matter. | ||||
It seems that very few people
are aware that simply pressing the delete button does not necessarily mean that
the data is destroyed and irretrievable. This research comes as a timely
reminder to both consumers and businesses that data should be destroyed properly
and not simply deleted or formatted, as this is not sufficient to completely
erase stored data.
Disklabs have since contacted all of the owners of the hard-drives and memory cards that data was retrieved from to inform them that their old media still contained retrievable data. It must be stressed that all these storage devices have now all been properly wiped by 1st Computer Traders Ltd and the devices are now being used as spare parts for further data recovery tasks sent in to Disklabs Data Recovery and Computer Forensics Services. Relevant Points which may be of interest to you: | ||||
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Moral of this Story
If you want your data wiped properly, use an expert. Do not rely on traders who offer to do it for you. We know that about 30% of them won't bother or do a 'botch job' of it. Data is NEARLY ALWAYS RETRIEVABLE. If you need data recovering, simply send it to a specialist, rather than someone who thinks that they are, or says he will have a go first. This will nearly always make the job more difficult for the professionals and most likely more expensive. Mobile Phones can be recovered as can PDA's and other hand held devices. Only buy reclaimed disks from or trade with members of the PC Association (or similar reputable bodies). Other related articles.
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