Hard Drive Destruction Methods and Keeping Corporate Data Secure During IT Asset Disposal

Hard Drive Destruction Methods and Keeping Corporate Data Secure During IT Asset Disposal

If your business is planning a large technology refresh, a data center upgrade for virtualization, or are downsizing employees odds are you are finding the need to dispose of surplus computers in a secure manner.

One of the largest risks during computer liquidation, pc recycling, or IT asset disposition of any type is handling the data destruction to properly mitigate any possibility of a data breach. However, with a strong plan and focused management of the data sanitization and hard drive disposal project data security can be smoothly ensured.

I recommend all companies to handle the DoD wiping or sanitization of hard drives before disposing of any equipment. Wiping hard drives refers to a process where the drives are overwritten with a series of binary code that renders the path to the data unrecoverable. The problem for large organizations is that wiping hundreds or thousands of machines is not practical for the office's power setups, staffing, or day to day operations.

Mobile shredding or pulverizing of electronic storage media is a becoming a more common approach.

A vendor can be commissioned to physically destroy hard drives right at your businesses' location by shredding, or degaussing (using strong magnetic charges to destroy drives). Do not just use hand drills to destroy hard drives, it is not a sufficient method of destroying data and does not guarantee data can be recovered.

Hard drive destruction is an important step in keeping your companies sensitive data out of the hands of criminals, off the black market, and in a way most importantly, from making the news. I'm constantly asked about the fines associated with improper hard drive disposal or data leaks caused by a hard drive destruction over sight. I always advise that the fines can be astronomical and many report upwards of 5 million dollars in losses, but the biggest problem a data breach can cause is lost clients and bad publicity.

If your business management firm is working closely with your clients' most sensitive information, losing data off of a retired hard drive could mean losing an important client and future revenue. If your business is an e-commerce site or in general takes credit card information and orders, who is going to trust you with his/her credit card information after seeing your company on the news?

During a computer disposal project make sure your company is taking every step possible to ensure proper data destruction. Requiring a vendor to perform hard drive destruction with a certificate of destruction and a list of serial numbers for reconciliation is a good measure and will ensure that your data is 100% eradicated.

By Frank Milia

frank@itamg.com

Vice President at IT Asset Management Group

IT Asset Management Group works with companies throughout North America to purchase, recycle, and remove surplus computer and IT equipment of all types. ITAMG offers a full suite of data destruction solutions, including an on-site hard drive shredding and wiping service.

ITAMG is a computer liquidator that operates a mobile hard drive shredder.

For more information visit us online at www.itamg.com

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