12/21/18 Leave No Confidential Data Trace!
We live in an age when improperly disposing of old IT assets can lead to serious business consequences, especially if confidential employee and customer information falls into the hands of data hackers.
Unfortunately, most companies focus on the purchase and maintenance phases of the IT life cycle, leaving the last – disposal – to their business landlords or waste management companies, who haul old assets to the recycling center or junkyard. Sometimes, companies even donate old computers to charities in the name of doing good.
Big business mistake!
Electronic hackers utilize increasingly sophisticated data recovery programs to swipe information off trashed or recycled IT equipment. Your internal IT department might toss out old computers believing the data has been wiped, when it’s actually still accessible to the growing army of creative and motivated data thieves.
Every industry, from biotech to legal to healthcare to government, needs to keep its cadre of electronic data safe. Hard drives, servers, CDs, flash drives, cell phones, and FAX machines are all susceptible to data breeches, especially during the disposal process. In the world of old electronics, out of sight is anything but out of mind. It can create one giant company headache.
Think of it another way…
Would you take paper hardcopies of confidential employee and client information and toss them into the recycling bin located next to the water cooler? Or would you safeguard the information by putting those documents through your company’s approved shredding protocol? The same company disposal process needs to be followed for old electronics.
Once stolen, sensitive electronic data can be used to damage your company’s privacy and brand reputation. In the most serious cases, a failure to comply with electronic data disposal laws can lead to stiff financial penalties and even jail time for high level staff.
Currently, 34 states and Puerto Rico have established data disposal laws that “require either private or governmental entities or both to destroy, dispose, or otherwise make personal information unreadable or undecipherable.”
Why take the chance of breaking state laws or facing client/employee lawsuits when companies like Castaway Technologies can provide safe and effective disposal of decommissioned technology?
There’s a safely managed solution.
Because Castaway takes the disposal of IT assets seriously, we are longtime members of NAID, the National Association for Information Destruction. One of our company’s founding principles is adhering to NAID’s high standards and established best practices. As active and highly participating NAID members, we keep up-to-date with the rapidly changing secure destruction processes. This is can be a very stringent process and we gladly do it to ensure adherence to the highest standards and ethical protocols throughout the entire chain-of-custody and data sanitation process. At all times, your sensitive data remains safe and secure in our company’s hands.
And for complete peace-of-company mind, at the end of the procedure you’ll even get a certificate of destruction.
Ready to learn more about what Castaway Technologies can do for you? Please contact one of our data destruction specialists at (978) 208-4730.
