As an IT manager are you confident your company is protected from a data breach? How can you be certain? In a recent survey, 83 percent of IT decision makers were either fairly or very confident they were protected. 15 percent on the other hand did not feel confident and 2 percent did not know. Of those surveyed more than half actually did experience a data breach making confidence levels an unreliable gauge of a company’s level of protection1.
As more data is being stored and accessed, vulnerabilities increase along with the value of the information. It is estimated that 80 percent of corporate laptops and desktops store confidential or sensitive data2. As we begin to realize the value of this data the protection of it becomes more of a concern, not only to businesses but consumers as well. This may be the reason data breach costs are increasing. Currently global corporate data breaches are averaging a total cost of $3.62 million per incident3.
The significance of securing this data is critical. This is why most enterprise companies rely on a third-party IT asset disposition vendor to manage the data destruction on retired hard drives. These vendors can offer varying services both on-site at your office, or nearby at a processing facility.
The destruction of digital data is often a customized service. There are various methods for data destruction some allowing the hard drive to be reused and some rendering the device obsolete. The decision of which method to proceed with can be based on different circumstances including what type of hard drive you’re working with.
Click here for “Part 2” of our five part hard drive data destruction series.
For more information on hard drive data security, download our complimentary whitepaper on “Five Ways to Improve Your Security During IT Asset Disposition (ITAD)” today.
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