Unless you make heavy use of Full Disk Encryption or ensure that all your data in encrypted you are bound to have sensitive information contained on the hard drives of your retired computers or worse external hard disks. Where did your last computer end up?
When a file is deleted from a hard drive, usually only the pointer to the location of the file on the drive gets erased. The contents of the file still remain on the drive until some other drive or operating system function randomly overwrites it. If you delete all your sensitive data and then remove the hard drive for disposal, all that data STILL EXISTS on the drive.
As deleting files do not actually remove the file from the drive, can you ensure that you securely erased the following when your computer was disposed of:
- customer credit card numbers
- personal or employee tax returns or other T-forms
- personal or sensitive photos
- confidential business documents
- customer lists
- accounting information
Our team can show you how to securely erase data and set-up secure environments to keep your sensitive files safe by properly destroying or erasing the drive to ensure that sensitive data cannot be retrieved. You can also opt to go with Hard Drives that minimize any possible risk:
Further reading can be done here: How to Make Drive Retirement Safe, Fast and Easy