- When you change your hard drive, make sure you have done a real data cleaning
- Secure Data Recovery bought 100 used and was able to recover millions of files from previous owners
- Quick formats are not enough: you have to overwrite the data
Like your smartphone, your hard drives can contain sensitive information. But unfortunately, it seems that too many people make the mistake of not cleaning a hard drive properly before replacing it, so that data can still be recovered. In a recent article, our colleagues from TechRadar relay an experience carried out by Secure Data Recovery, a specialist in data restoration. In essence, he bought 100 random hard drives and discovered that data was still recoverable on a good part.
In essence, the company managed to recover data from 69 hard drives. However, the majority of these files came from a single hard drive, which contained 3.1 million. However, according to TechRadar, for this recovery, Secure Data Recovery would have used only “reasonable” means, thus suggesting that these are not complex operations. The objective of this experiment was to highlight the fact that people do not always clean their old hard drives well, since only one disk out of 100 was encrypted, which makes the data unreadable.
Hard drives should be cleaned properly
Regarding the recovered data, Secure Data Recovery claims that measures have been taken to keep it confidential. “We have followed our usual and strict data handling practices, which include over 100 security checks. We never viewed the contents of any recovered files and purged the data securely after the exercise”assured the company.
For those who are going to replace a hard drive, Jake Reznik, lab operations manager at Secure Data Recovery, explains that it can be reused. But he recommends using hard disk cleaning software that “overwrite the original data with random patterns over multiple passes”. In a blog post, the company recalls that even after a quick format, it is still possible to recover (theoretically) deleted data on spaces that have not been allocated on the disk.
“Unlike its quick counterpart, full format erases all existing data on a device by overwriting it with zeros”, we read in this publication. Jake Reznik also discusses more drastic measures that involve physically destroying the hard drive, such as degaussing, or even “disintegrating” the hard drive. Practices that companies can use.
Even a router can leak information
In any case, the experience highlights the fact that when they resell electronic devices, they do not always pay attention to their data. And in addition to thoroughly cleaning hard drives, laptops or smartphones before reselling them, you even have to be careful when you throw away or resell a router.
A few weeks ago we relayed a similar experience carried out by the ESET company, but with second-hand routers. She had discovered that some resold routers are not properly cleaned and can therefore leak sensitive business information.
