What is Data Destruction?
Data Destruction simply means removing your sensitive and confidential data permanently from any storage media. So it can’t be accessed by anyone in future. There are numerous ways to do this like data shredding, physical destruction, degaussing and last not the least data erasing software based approach. After some point of time, every electronic device will be retired. What happens to the data it carrying since long, that data must be completely destroyed before being handed over to any local seller or any unwanted person. WHO Knows what happen with your data?
Why Data Destruction is required?
Because data accommodating devices like hard drive, servers, flash drives are the softest target for the data breach. That is due to limited awareness among general masses. With advancement in digital age, the use of pen and paper is reduced to minimal which means we are switching to online and offline mediums for storing information. Age and gender are not a bar for technology with everyone storing their precious information on storage devices like bank details, credit card information, passport numbers, social security number, etc. Do you want it to be enjoyed by cyber criminals possibly for their own profit and helping anti-national elements? None of us surely want it, so be wise and clean the drive with the efficient method.
Who Required Data Destruction?
Almost everyone on this planet. Yes, you heard right, those who value their data will always opt for data deletion. The consumer base is quite large, from a home based user to a trillion dollars fetching big companies. In fact, bigger companies have greater threats, companies along with the people included are bound by certain laws and policies where they need to follow strictly to avoid hefty fines or imprisonment. Different laws prevailing in some countries are HIPAA, JIPA, PCi-DSS, IT-Act, SOX etc. The companies are required to erase their data before handed over old IT assets to a local dealer or computer recycler. Also, in the case of closure of any business or process all the data related to it should be permanently deleted.
Various Industries associated with it.
- Hospitals and various Clinics
- Banking and Financial Serving Groups
- IT Companies
- Laws and Audit Firms
- Various Academic Institutions and much more.
What happens if Data Leaked?
Eventually, you will fall in a big mess if any of your data is compromised. We never now the value of our data, its better evaluation is done by cyber goons. They usually recovered only those data which return them huge profits like financial firms records, government department or defense-related information, personal images and videos of individuals. So, it depends on the individual how securely and timely, they deleted it completely.
How we traditionally Removing Data?
Most of us, in absence of awareness still removing data with old traditional practice like shift-delete, formatting a drive, FDISK, Delete command which is highly considered unsafe. After every data removal, we feel relaxed and stress-free, that’s its gone for forever, but actually the data removed from only index table, with still prevailing in the core of disk. By using Data Recovery software, it will be easily recovered by the wrong intention fellows.
Sustainable way of deleting data
Few of the methods are already mentioned in the start of this post, but which one to choose is mattered the most. Physical destruction method is easy to done, but it creates lots of E-waste and contributes to polluting our environment. While the others have also, their pros and cons. But one method which surprised me most and produces excellent results is data erasing software method. No need to pollute the environment, even no need to visit data removal centers, just a click of the mouse and all wiped. This approach is based on the principle of overwriting with random 0’s and 1’s and other military based algorithms, there is no chance of any data recovery from any forensic tool. Consumers need to choose wisely because numbers of utilities are available in the market. Few of them which I personally test and used in recent past are:
- BitRaser – From the house of Stellar Data Recovery
- Secure Eraser
- MiniTool- Drive Wipe
Final Words:-
Before doing any of the above methods, backups are must, because once the data is gone, its gone for forever. All the important information should be preserved for future use. Always clean up your important information timely to avoid any data breach in future. Use such methods which give you maximum returns at lower costs and saves the environment too.
