The Importance of Shredding Your Hard Drives

Computer hard drives contain valuable information. A hard drive used for work can contain financial statements and details, proprietary information, budgetary numbers, intellectual property, and many other types of data that can be used for criminal behavior if accessed by the wrong people.

A hard drive from a home computer can contain personal banking and financial information, sensitive personal and medical information, account numbers, passwords, and much more.

To keep all this information from falling into the wrong hands, and to maintain compliance with state and federal regulations regarding the proper disposal of confidential information, it’s important that you get rid of old hard drives the right way—by using a professional shredding company like PROSHRED® Connecticut.

The Danger of Deleting

When you want to dispose of old hard drives, you need to be sure the information they contain is destroyed completely and is no longer accessible. Simply deleting all the data on a hard drive isn’t enough—the data stays on the drive until it is overwritten by new data, and a computer-savvy criminal can easily retrieve the “deleted” information using data recovery software.

In 2016, Blancco Technology Group purchased 200 used hard disk drives and solid state drives from eBay and Craigslist—67% of them contained identifiable information and 11% contained sensitive corporate data that had been “deleted” using the delete button or by dragging the files to the recycle bin.

Reformatting the disk makes data slightly harder to retrieve, but all the information is still on the drive and can be recovered fairly easily by someone who has the right information retrieval tools and knows what to do.

What About Wiping?

Programs that claim to thoroughly “wipe” your hard drive by writing over the data on the drive so all deleted files are erased is certainly a better option that deleting or reformatting, but there’s no guarantee your data can’t be recovered, and using wiping software does not ensure regulatory compliance or protect you from liability should confidential documents on the hard drive be recovered.

DIY Destruction

People have used various methods of destroying hard drives, including submerging them in water, drilling holes in the drive, or running a magnet over the surface. None of these methods are foolproof, and none will give you evidence of destruction in case your methods are audited.

Professional Hard Drive Shredding

Using a secure, professional hard drive destruction company like PROSHRED® Connecticut will give you the peace of mind of knowing that your old hard drives have been properly destroyed so your data can never be accessed or recovered.

After your hard drives are shredded¬¬ using PROSHRED® Connecticut’s high-quality commercial-grade shredders, PROSHRED® will provide you with a detailed certificate of destruction so you can document that you have destroyed any confidential documents in accordance with state and federal privacy laws and specific industry guidelines, including HIPAA, HITECH, FACTA, GLBA, FERPA, ADA, COPRA, SOX, and ECPA.

PROSHRED® will then deliver the shredded hard drives to one of our certified metal and electronics recycling partners for further processing.

Whether you’re a law firm, medical facility, financial organization, educational institution, residential location, or any type of business, keep your confidential information safe by getting your hard drives professionally shredded by PROSHRED®.