Hard drives are a part of any business’s data storage plans. Companies in Salt Lake City and across the country use hard drives to store data from past quarters and annual reporting, including financial records to employees’ personal information. These hard drives can contain information you want to keep secure and private. So what do you do when it’s time to get rid of that data? Improperly destroying hard drives can cause your company’s confidential information to fall into the wrong hands.
Here are three reasons why you should use a professional hard drive destruction service instead of risking your data security to other methods:
1. Deleting hard drive data isn’t enough.
When you’re finished with a hard drive, the first instinct is to delete all the files on the drive using your computer. However, even when deleted and emptied from the trash bin folder, these files will remain within the hard drive’s memory storage.
Simply deleting your data from a hard drive will leave your company’s most important private information at risk of falling into the wrong hands while compromising the security of your most valuable data.
A study in which the subjects purchased 200 used hard drives found that 78% percent of those hard drives had personal, identifiable data that was recoverable, with 11% of that data being sensitive corporate information like financial records. In another high profile example, a hacker bought used Tesla media components from eBay and found that all of the devices still contained their previous owners’ personal information, including passwords, addresses, contacts information, and more.
2. DIY destruction methods don’t work.
If deleting your hard drive data isn’t enough, can you destroy the hard drive yourself? Short answer: no. Submerging the hard drive in water or smashing the hard drive may make it non-functional, but this does not destroy the data inside. A hard drive file can take up less than 0.0015 of an inch on a hard drive, so if any piece of the drive remains intact after physical or water damage, your data may still be vulnerable. Holding a magnet to your hard drive will not destroy most of the data on the drive either, regardless of the type of drive. Data on solid-state drives (SSD) is unaffected by magnets, and without a magnet that is powerful enough, the data on hard disk drives (HDD) can remain. DIY data destruction methods can leave your personal information unsecured, making your safest bet to use a professional hard drive destruction service.
3. Rocky Mountain Document Destruction has the right tools.
Here at Rocky Mountain Document Destruction, we have the right tools to ensure the permanent destruction of your business’s sensitive information. We take your data security and privacy seriously and ensure that your information does not end up in the wrong place. Our hard drive destruction process uses a 3000psi hydraulic press to puncture and crush hard drive disks to render your company’s data inaccessible. If your company has hard drives in need of destruction, Rocky Mountain Document Destruction has the professional tools and services to keep your information secure.
Salt Lake City businesses rely on Rocky Mountain Document Destruction to manage their paper shredding, document destruction, and hard drive destruction needs. We have a range of service options to meet any size of business needs, including scheduled paper shredding purges and paper shredding events to attract new clients for your business. If you require any of these services, reach out to Rocky Mountain Document Destruction today!
