A recent study has found that the only way to stop fraudsters from stealing information from your old computer hard drives is by destroying the drives themselves completely! A number of recent data theft cases have shown the dangers in disposing of second-hand equipment without considering the old data sitting on your old hard drives.
There is now much useful software that is freely available which can be used to recover files that users believe have been permanently deleted. That’s great if you want to get your own data back and recovered. Not so great if someone is using it to get your information. Criminals actually source old computers from websites like eBay and even from the inside of rubbish tips. They do this to find a users’ valuable details.
As an experiment, Which? Computing magazine recovered 22,000 “deleted” files from eight computers it purchased on eBay. The consumer watchdog now recommends the most straightforward of solutions. This is, according to Which?, the complete destruction of your old hard disk drives (HDD). It actually recommends smashing old hard drives with a hammer.
There are a number of software solutions that do actually exist to more definitively erase files and information from your drives. It’s impossible to guarantee, however, that any method for permanently erasing your data is 100% effective. Technology changes so fast, software is constantly being updated and developed and we never really know what’s available to people with unlimited resources.
Destruction must be done with caution because those many smithereens we’ve smashed them into, contain environmentally harmful materials and so they should be recycled – for instance at the vendor from whom a new hard drive is purchased.
Infotech in Bury will physically destruct your old hard drive for £10 if you drop it in with us. You can also post the drive or we can collect (distances over 1km are subject to a charge).
We will, however, provide this service free with every order over £20. This can be anything from buying encryption or anti-virus software, getting a repair, PC tune up or purchasing any reconditioned equipment we have available to buy.
Call Ron at Infotech Bury on 0161 705 1342 today.
