Troves of deleted data lingers on disks… according to this ‘ere study, anyway
You would think that, with computers dominating every aspect of our lives, people would be aware that storage devices can retain information even after clicking «Empty Recycle Bin».
Not so, according to research by Finnish data removal specialist Blancco. The company purchased 159 random used drives on eBay in the US and Europe, and found that 42 per cent (or 67 devices) enabled anyone with basic IT literacy to access the data stored by their previous owners. A whopping 15 per cent contained personally identifiable information that could be used by cyber criminals.
Even more shocking are the contents of some of the drives. One, evidently belonging to a software developer with a high level of government security clearance (who really should have known better), contained scanned images of family passports and birth certificates, CVs and financial records. Another had 5GB of archived internal office email from a major travel company.
There was a drive that stored 3GB of records from a freight company, along with documents detailing schedules and truck registrations, and a drive from a school, filled with photos and documents mentioning pupils’ names and grades.
