Why do identity thieves want to get their hands on your hard drive? Old hard drives can provide a wealth of valuable information, including your Social Security number, banking details, and contact information for friends and relatives. Armed with this highly sensitive and personal data, identity thieves may attempt to open credit in your name, con people you know, or steal from your savings.
When it’s time to upgrade your computer, or you’re forced to upgrade because of outdated technology, you will probably move all of the data on the current hard drive to the new hard drive. However, that doesn’t mean the data is gone, even if you erase it after you’ve transferred it. Any criminal could get the hard drive and steal the data off of it. Even if you “wipe” the drive, a hacker could recover some or all of your sensitive data. To adequately protect your private data, and that of your clients if you are upgrading a business computer, contact Carolina Shred about our hard drive destruction services.
When it comes to getting rid of documents and other technology, many people opt to do it themselves without realizing how quickly they are compromising sensitive information. While it is always good to use a firm that specializes in hard drive destruction, it is much better to physically destroy your hard drive instead of using a data wiping program. It’s important to note that physically destroying the hard drive doesn’t mean dropping it on the floor and thinking you’ve damaged it enough to harm the data on it. It takes much more than that.
Think about the last time your laptop or desktop computer bit the dust. Chances are you relegated it to the electronic waste facility (or sold for a few bucks on Craigslist) without a second thought.
When it's time for a new computer, you need to take some steps to ensure that the data from the old hard drive isn't accessible. Even if you “wiped” the drive, some of your private data, such as passwords and bank account information, may still be accessible. The only way to ensure that someone isn't able to retrieve your private information is by ensuring that the hard drive is completely destroyed so that data is not retrievable.
Shredding documents is an important step in securing your personal data or, if you own a business, your customers' personal data. Shredding hard drives is also a step in protecting personal and confidential data, though most people do not think about shredding hard drives – they just throw the computer away.
Most companies have switched to digital data instead of keeping paper files. Doctors, lawyers, banks and many other professions now store files on the computer. Eventually, a computer becomes obsolete or it dies and companies replace the computers with new computers. Even if you format the hard drives on the computers being thrown away, data thieves could still get information that was stored on the hard drives.
When it's time to get rid of an old computer, whether you are a business or an individual, you need to take steps to secure the hard drive – and that means ensuring it's completely destroyed so that less than honest people are not able to get your personal or work information from the drive. Also, check out our guide to shredding medical documents for more information about medical document destruction.