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When you think of cybersecurity, you probably think of high-profile data breaches impacting major brands.
However,
43% of attacks actually impact the small-to-medium-sized businesses.
You can never be too careful in today’s business environment, and IT teams are constantly scrambling to make sure their companies don’t suffer the same fate.
But while most attention goes to protecting the endpoints we’re currently using, what about the devices we’ve decommissioned? It’s frighteningly common for small businesses to overlook this aspect of data protection. Exercise proper data hygiene by adopting data wiping procedures.
Let’s go over what data wiping is, how it contributes to data protection, and why the risk-laden landscape of digital security in 2023 calls for businesses to adopt it.
Public awareness of cybersecurity has undoubtedly seen a resurgence in light of recent data breaches. A 2023 report from Ivanti confirmed that over 7 out of 10 chief information security officers will see an increase in cybersecurity spending in the coming year. Yet despite increasing investment into data security, the problem is far from solved.
The first issue is a lack of awareness. For example,
44% of businesses in the United Kingdom risk GDPR-related fines heading into the millions for failing to wipe data from discarded drives, and 71% have no official data disposal policies.
The first few months of 2023 have already seen data breaches impacting large brands and exposing the records of millions of users. In January alone,
These incidents only emphasize why continuous improvement in cybersecurity and data protection is still necessary. Don’t end up like one of these brands; set up proper data disposal practices to avoid similar incidents in your organization.
Think about it: why do offices invest in paper shredders? Those important business documents contain sensitive information that anybody could use to compromise the security of your company. You wouldn’t toss them whole into the trash, where anybody could dig them up again later. A paper shredder renders those documents unreadable to give you peace of mind after throwing them out.
Similarly, a
data destruction solution is crucial to prevent security breaches related to your data on old hard drives and devices you aren’t using anymore. It’s a way to ensure the privacy of clients, employees, and business partners whose data you keep digitally.
Data wiping goes beyond emptying the recycle bin. Even formatting the drive doesn’t always prevent someone else from recovering its data. Issues that may arise from improper data disposal policies include:
The next time you must decommission equipment or throw out storage drives, have a digital data destruction policy to prevent any sensitive data from leaking out.
Data disposal can’t be an afterthought. Management must build it into the IT lifecycle because of its role in business integrity. Data destruction contributes to:
All businesses must have robust data disposal policies, especially those in high-risk industries like healthcare and banking. The potential losses of data breaches are immense in these markets.
Regulatory compliance is a primary advantage of data sanitation. Some examples of standards and regulations that specifically mention data disposal include the following.
We’ve mentioned before that emptying the recycle bin isn’t enough. Comprehensive data disposal can involve one of several strategies:
If you’re just recycling an old family PC, most data destruction methods get the job done. However, wiping is a less wasteful and more cost-effective answer to data disposal for businesses going through dozens of storage devices regularly.
The primary advantage of data wiping is that the storage drive remains usable afterwards, allowing you to reuse, refurbish, or sell it. This eco-friendly solution prevents drives and devices from becoming e-waste and saves you money on the budget.
Businesses also have a choice of algorithm depending on their capacity for risk. Running a data wipe in multiple passes takes extra time and cost but virtually guarantees that the data is not recoverable.
However, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has determined that one pass is sufficient for ensuring data security, even in a business setting. The high data density of modern storage drives allows even a single overwrite to erase all the data on a disk.
Cybersecurity teams must be diligent when reducing the risk of data breaches. One aspect they cannot overlook is preventing cyber criminals from recovering data on discarded hard drives and devices. Data wiping ensures that decommissioned hardware doesn’t pose another security risk.
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