So you think that discarding your old hard disk is fine because, anyway, you have reformatted it, and all the sensitive data has been wiped out.
Well, you are far from the truth. Your personal identity is indelibly embedded in your computer. Recent research on the subject reveals that three out of four drives obtained from the sales of old computers carry sensitive data such as credit card numbers, confidential emails, and the important medical history of patients.
Yes, there is software out there that can help recover data from reformatted hard drives. And who would want to do something like that? A cyber criminal, of course. A week after selling your old hard drive or donating it to some charity, you might find that your credit card has been rejected. You check on it and find that someone has purchased £4000 worth of stereo equipment on your card.
The terrifying question is: Do you know who has your old hard drive?
The FBI says that the fastest growing crime in the
In 2006, credit card fraud in the
Isn’t it ironical how much money, time and effort we invest into safeguarding data when all we do in the end is throw it out for someone else to pick up and use to our disadvantage?
Even more terrifying is the idea of an online auction that will sell your sensitive data to cyber criminals for pennies. This is partly why criminals have graduated to becoming cyber criminals. Why burgle a house or an office when profits lie in the trash or are available for pennies online?
Overwrite, Overwrite!
Reformatting your hard drive is not the way to permanently delete your data, but overwriting is. Several programmes are available today that will safely eliminate your data. They do this by overwriting the information with meaningless characters so that it is useless in case it is recovered. These programmes can even select the data you want to overwrite, whether it’s all of it, including programmes and operating systems, or just individual files.
Darik Horn, author of the very popular DBAN which is available free on the internet, says that while a single overwrite should be adequate to make data irrecoverable, overwriting the data at least four times will ensure that future advancements in data recovery do bring your data back to life.
Protecting Yourself against Online Fraud
Chris Ellis, a student of
Chris was on holiday when he discovered he had been duped and it spoiled his holiday. Fortunately, he did not lose any money in the end, but since then he keeps his anti-virus software updated.
Shopping and making transactions online have become so easy and convenient that most of us don’t think about its dangers. For example, if you end up purchasing goods from a fake website, you could have your credit card number stolen. Or cyber criminals could hack into your bank’s website and steal your number.
But banks are waking up and attempting to devise new methods of preventing fraud. Lloyds TSB gave 30,000 customers a way to generate a new passcode each time they logged into their bank account. And it worked.
However, you can’t only depend on banks to provide you with security. You can take some simple steps yourself that will protect you from online fraud.
- Always use spam filters when emailing.
- Open emails and attachments only when you are 100% certain of their legitimacy. A legitimate website will not send you emails that will ask you to click on a link to get to a site.
- Type in the URL of your bank or shopping site instead of following links.
- If you want to shop online, make sure that the website addresses begin with http.
- Get yourself some antivirus software that comes with a firewall and anti-spyware, and keep it updated.
Cyber criminals are smart, but you can outsmart them. Computer Forensics (or digital forensics) experts can assist in retrieving and deleting data from hard drives and flah devices.