 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 hardware is discarded; leaving the existing data vulnerable. Protecting personal data and digital information doesn’t mean it has to be a burden on your existing IT procedures but rather an investment in security for the benefit of the company and to protect those who interact with it.
Devices subject to sanitisation
Devices subject to data sanitisation requirements include computers, desktops, laptops and servers as well as external storage media. It may also include items like network switches, routers cameras and other IoT devices. Any type of storage media containing personal data should be subject to safe sanitisation procedures and should include any device that contains information you want to keep private and confidential. Hard drives, SSDs, flash media of various types and formats, USB drives and magnetic tapes represent only a small sample of media to consider. A relatively new category of storage but an especially critical one is mobile devices.
Smartphones and tablets now offer considerable storage space and are considered standard equipment for most employees. According to data obtained by Statcounter, mobile devices are now more popular than desktops globally. It is therefore imperative when business mobile devices are withdrawn, to include them in the secure sanitisation process. It is important to note that smartphones and tablets contain the same information that you can find on devices such as desktop and laptop computers (e.g. email and documents) and even more data if we consider SMSs, phonebook and call logs.
Don’t open yourself up to risk
The introduction of global data privacy laws has attempted to standardise and update the protection of personal data to face the new challenges of the digital era. It is, therefore, critical that organisations put secure erasure processes in place for end-of-life media that is due to be decommissioned/recycled, but also for through-life data during the regular lifecycle of devices.
For businesses, the easiest way to implement this is to set a budget aside at the t