With increasing rates of cybercrime and large penalties for data breaches, the protection of sensitive data is a challenge for the majority of businesses. It can be difficult to comprehend the scale of the average company’s data footprint. Today, organisations must manage desktops and laptops, multi-disk servers, and tape backups as well as mobile devices, memory cards, virtual environments and cloud deployments. It’s more important than ever that organisations manage every detail of their data securely – and in compliance with regulations - not just in storage and transit, but also at the end of its lifecycle.
When data erasure operations are not completed or properly carried out, sensitive and confidential files may be left behind on devices. Organisations are put at risk of a data breach or theft, when intellectual property, private documents, and email, as well as financial and health records, and other critical information are not securely wiped from storage media. Having the correct processes in place will not only protect organisations from potential data breaches but will also ensure they’re adhering to international standards.
What is the secure sanitisation of data?
Decommissioning, disposing or reusing your IT assets currently represents one of the most vulnerable moments for your data. Most companies don’t take appropriate precautions for the retirement of each PC, mobile device, server or other electronic devices. In the case of retiring legacy IT infrastructure, all information (including personal data) will remain completely visible and accessible to anyone who has access to that hardware if it is not sanitised or destroyed correctly.
Many people believe that native deletion options, such as the use of the ‘Delete’ command on a selection of files, choosing to ‘Empty Trash’ or ‘Format’ the drive are all secure sanitisation solutions, capable of eliminating all traces of deleted files quickly and permanently. Unfortunately, the fact that the content is no longer visible does not necessarily mean that it is no longer present on the storage media system. Commands such as those only delete the pointers to the operating system where your files are located.
Imagine you are browsing through a book. Just because you get rid of the index, it doesn’t equate to the deletion of the contents. If you ‘search’ through it, you won’t have any trouble finding what you are looking for. Data sanitisation is essential; it’s different from the simple act of deleting file pointers and the contents of the files themselves. In fact, none of the original information on your device is recoverable once it’s been securely sanitised. Returning to the example of the book, it is as if by removing the index, all the pages of the chapters in the book are also deleted.
Overwriting is a technical measure for the secure sanitisation of data. It eliminates not only the pointers to the files but also the files themselves. Securely sanitised data is no longer present on the media itself, and cannot be retrieved, not only with the use of specific software but also by data recovery specialists.
The secure sanitisation of data is not a choice but a necessity
The sanitisation of data, rather than being perceived as only required by law, should be adopted as best practice for the protection of data held by the company, regardless of the type of business. Protecting the personal information of customers, suppliers, and employees is ultimately a best practice rule; as is protecting confidential data related to the business such as intellectual property rights, development projects for new products, and accounting information, etc.
Many organisations have taken the protection of information and sensitive data; according to MarketsandMarkets, the global cybersecurity market is booming. Cybersecurity-related spending is on track to surpass $133 billion in 2022, and the market has grown more than 30x in 13 years. However, all investments and information stored within protected IT systems become insecure if you ignore adequate security as soon as the hardwar