Protecting Sensitive Data
-September 16, 2005
A common pitfall that organizations get themselves into is the dilemma of
how to dispose of the old technology. It is illegal in most places to just
dump computers in the trash, but if you search Google for “computer
recycling” you will find lots of places interested in helping to recycle or
donate your used computer equipment. However, before donating, recycling,
or selling the computers that you are replacing, it is very important to
protect your business, your customers, your employees, and your partners by
making sure that any and all data is removed from the hard drives before
they leave your possession.
NONE OF THE TOOLS THAT COME WITH WINDOWS WILL ADEQUATELY REMOVE YOUR DATA.
The only way to properly protect your sensitive data is a third-party tool.
Cnet has a few. I use Disk Sanitizer, a
linux solution. Disk Sanitizer is free. I have also had good results with eraser, a windows-based product that is also free.
Buying a used hard drive is almost as much fun as poking around in it to see
if you can recover any information on its previous owner. Cnet has a good
article pointing to
just some of the dangers of not properly sanitizing a drive prior to
disposal and a US Supreme Court ruling that states any information on the
drive changes ownership with the drive. So, the next person that gets it is
within his or her rights to look at any credit card numbers, contact
information, pictures, documents, plans, or whatever that you might have
left behind.
Protect your business and everyone involved with your business. If you need
help, or you're not sure where to start, Victory is here to help.
-September 8, 2003-
During the past few weeks the virus known as the blaster worm has made a lot of trouble for businesses all over the world. Although most of these worms aren’t destructive to the computers that they infect, they do send garbage all over the internet to clog email servers, send spam, and even damage web servers. The latest in the line of blaster worm mutations, “SoBig”, has infected almost 400,000 computers and continues to spread.
These kinds of simple worms will continue to spread and before “SoBig” is contained, there will be a new strain to choke your email server with garbage mail. All that you can do to protect yourself from these kinds of viruses is to make certain that your company has a good antivirus system and to operate your company’s network from behind a firewall. Don’t forget that an antivirus system only works if it is up to date and scanning regularly.
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