Xperien has warned that 42% of hard drives purchased on eBay still\ncontain sensitive data and 15% hold personal information on them, from\nfinancial records to birth certificates, passport numbers and photos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is according to a study from Ontrack and the Blancco\nTechnology Group.Some of the findings of the report, which looks at residual\ndata on used storage drives purchased on eBay, the world’s largest online\nmarketplace, included a drive from a software developer with a high level of\ngovernment security clearance, with scanned images of family passports and birth\ncertificates, CVs and financial records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other information included university student papers and\nassociated email addresses, school data including photos and documents with\npupils’ names and grades, 5GB of archived internal office email from a major travel\ncompany and 3GB of data from a cargo and freight company with documents\ndetailing shipping details, schedules and truck registrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of the research, a range of used hard drives from leading\nbrands including Samsung, Dell, Seagate, HP and Hitachi were purchased at\nrandom. The only requirement was that the drives had not been wiped using\nBlancco products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were analysed in early 2019 by partner Ontrack, using\nproprietary data recovery tools. Once the recovery exercises were complete, the\ndrives were then sanitised by Blancco to ensure permanent removal of the data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Xperien ITAD manager Bridgette Vermaak says the most concerning\nabout these findings is the fact that each seller Blancco interacted with as\npart of the process stated that the proper data sanitisation methods had been\nperformed so that no data was left behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This highlights a major concern that while sellers clearly\nrecognise the importance of removing data, they are in fact, using methods\nwhich are inadequate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This personally identifiable information puts individuals at\nrisk of becoming victims of cybercrime. Selling old electronics online might\nsound like a good option, but in reality, one is at serious risk of exposing\npersonal data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blancco VP cloud and data erasure Fredrik Forslund added: “By\nputting this equipment into the wrong hands, irreversible damage will be caused\n\u2013 not just to the seller, but their employer, friends and family members. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is also clear that there is confusion around the right methods\nof data erasure, as each seller was under the impression that data had been\npermanently removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s critical to securely erase any data on drives before\npassing them onto another party, using the appropriate methods to confirm that\nit’s well and truly gone. Education on best ways to permanently remove data\nfrom devices is a vital investment to negate the very real risk of falling\nvictim to identity theft, or other methods of cybercrime.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Xperien has warned that 42% of hard drives purchased on eBay still contain sensitive data and 15% hold personal information on them, from financial records to birth certificates, passport numbers and photos. This is according to a study from Ontrack and the Blancco Technology Group.Some of the findings of the report, which looks at residual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":29381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,630,399,54],"tags":[5718,5401,492,2377,11340,11344,11341,2719,11342,2381,11343,1968],"class_list":["post-29380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-enterprise-security","category-hardware","category-more-news","category-research","tag-blancco-technology-group","tag-bridgette-vermaak","tag-cybercrime","tag-dell","tag-ebay","tag-fredrik-forslund","tag-hard-drive","tag-hp","tag-ontrack","tag-samsung","tag-seagate","tag-xperien"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29382,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29380\/revisions\/29382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}