Once you’ve read this article, your hard drive could be melted in 30 seconds. “Digital Shredding” technology is now available.
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it,” These classic words would often prelude the espionage action of the Mission Impossible TV shows and films, where spies were given secret instructions that destroyed themselves completely. Surprisingly, technology like this is now becoming commercialised for ordinary companies. A new product called the EDT Digital Shredder promises fast, neat and total destruction of data, without damaging the drive electronics for re-use.
Mr Jorge Silveira, of Consulvest Australia is a methodical operator. He presents his facts in careful order, backed up with research and real-world examples. He explains the grim state of decommissioned computer data in today’s business world clearly and without laying blame, in such a way that the total scale of the problem is immediately laid bare. Yet you may have never considered the problem.
He’s exactly the kind of careful, ordered character you’d want in charge of a gritty area of work with potentially great importance, like data destruction. Representing Ensconce Data Technology (EDT) in Australia, his company Consulvest is the sole distributor of the Digital Shredder. EDT make equipment for the kind of people that are deeply paranoid about data being recovered from decommissioned hard drives.
The value of data
According to Jorge, data from government embassies could potentially be “worth probably millions.” He said. He emphasises that this value is not exaggerated for private enterprise, either. “This can mean success or failure for companies”. One hard drive recovered from a dumper bin, with a thousand customer credit card numbers could spell a public relations disaster. The same drive could mean effortless theft of original IP, or inside information, that is supposed to remain private. Yet, there seems to be an alarming amount of lackadaisical procedures when it comes to decommissioning computers.
Jorge explains his education approach like this: he puts the directors of IT and the financial directors in the room together, firstly re-affirming the damage that leaked intellectual property or customer data could cause. Everyone can agree on that point. He then reminds everyone how most desktop computers in an organisation will contain some kind of secret information along these lines, especially servers. He then asks the IT director what the decommissioning process is for old computers – which is nearly always “give them away to a worthy cause” or “have them collected by computer recyclers”. At this point, the financial director usually turns white and shortly afterward, places an order. Financial institutions, insurance companies, law firms and government agencies have been quick to adopt the product, according to Jorge. “These guys get the message right away, no problem.” He said.
“We want to become the world leaders in data destruction,” said Jorge. According to EDT, there are a number of ways to wipe information off hard drives, but most of them are inadequate, or unnecessarily damaging to the environment. He detailed the pros and cons of each approach for PC Authority.