Sometimes you have to deal with hard drives or other supported data devices and you need to ensure that your private data is securely destroyed & cannot be recovered, but what’s the best way to do this? You might think that physically destroying a device is the only way you can be sure that the data on it goes with it. But shredding is not the only safe way to remove data from a device. It’s also not the most environmentally friendly way to recycle electronics. In this article, you will look at another way to securely delete data with the help of data sanitization.
Table of Contents
What is data sanitization?
Data sanitization involves the intentional permanent deletion or destruction of data from a storage device to ensure that it cannot be recovered. When data is deleted from the storage medium the media is not really deleted and can be recovered by an attacker with access to the device. This raises serious concerns about the security and privacy of data. With sterilization, the storage media will be cleared so that no data is left on the device and unable to recover data even with the use of advanced forensic tools.
This data can affect you in two main ways. They are given by,
- Your personal computer and smart devices
- Business information, including financial, employee, and customer information
Personal data:
Personal data includes bank information, pictures, saved passwords, app login, and social media accounts. Criminals use these to steal your money or to steal your identity. Just as anyone can use email, including sensitive information with the original letter, someone could activate a credit card offer or steal your potential tax return. However, your phone’s data is more dangerous. Even worse, criminals can steal this long after dropping off your computer or Smartphone.
Business data:
Businesses have a lot of important and useful information. But, unfortunately, different departments and computers have information that can be stolen. For example, sales and accounting contain customer information about purchases, while HR processes employee tax and payroll information. This is even more shocking for healthcare businesses and customer health records.
Creating an identity theft risk management plan is a great way to reduce your risk. You can be held responsible for the stolen information of your customers. Data sanitization is the typical part of a risk management plan.
What is data destruction?
Data destruction is one of the processes of destroying the data in the hard disk, tapes, and other type of electronic media so that can be entirely unreadable and cannot be accessed. This ensures complete confidence that confidential information does not fall into the hands of others before it can be recycled.
Data destruction is an effective solution to your daily e-waste problem. This is because most electronic devices have parts that can be recycled and reused. Recycling helps to conserve natural resources immensely. It also prevents water and air pollution as a by-product of eliminating hazards. The destruction of data also significantly reduces the amount of green emissions generated by the production of new products.
Type of data destruction:
There are different methods that can be explored to discard information; unfortunately, there is no method that guarantees a 100% success rate. Data destruction can be done in several ways. And knowing the methods available will greatly help you choose the one that best suits your business needs. They include:
- Deleting and overwriting data
- Delete/Reformat
- Override
- Demagnetization/Physical destruction
- Solid State/Electronic Shredder
Data destruction ensures that such files or data are permanently deleted and prevent any data retrieval existing by destroying electronic devices. Therefore, secure data destruction is very important. This is because it prevents many inconveniences caused by data loss, especially when customer data is leaked.
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