You may have heard of hard drive disposal but do you know why it is important? In a nutshell, if you throw out a hard drive without disposing of it properly, all your data is at risk of being stolen if someone gets the hard drive. Basically, anything you have ever typed on, saved to, downloaded on, or used your computer to do can be pulled off the dive. Even erasing and reformatting will not fully remove that information and data from the drive. Here are just a few examples of what is at risk of being stolen:
Personal Information – names, addressed, family and friends, business contacts, social security numbers, and so forth are common items hackers look for on discarded devices.
Financial Information – one of the most devastating pieces of information a hacker can glean from your discarded hard drive are back accounts, credit cards, and financial information.
Pictures and Emails – all of your photos, images, videos, emails and anything you have saved to your computer, shared with others, or received from someone else can be pulled easily.
Business Information – for the business, this can be especially devastating if trade secrets, contracts, deals, and contact information were to get to the wrong people or were released to the general public.
Passwords – hackers can even get records of your passwords and what sites you visit and do business on which means they can also get information about your finances and your family.
Phone Records – if you use an internet service provider for your phone service these calls and all your contacts and messages are saved on the hard drive and can be retrieved.
Legal Plans – for the business or the individual legal information can also be hacked with hard drive skimming and can include court papers, charges, arrest reports, tickets, and payment requirements.
It is easy to see that hard drive disposal is a big deal and that it needs to be done the right way! There is so much at stake that you cannot afford to take chances and take the easy way out. Few things will totally wipe a hard drive clean so the best way to guarantee no one can get your information once you throw out your hard drive is to shred it. Hard drive shredding renders the device utterly destroyed and ensures there is no piece left that is big enough to contain information that can be reassembled or read in any way. Call EPE Components today and we will take care of your hard drive disposal needs!
