In June of 2005, a multinational financial services corporation announced that in early May of that year, UPS had picked up a box of computer tapes containing the sensitive information of 3.9 million customers to be shipped to a credit reporting agency. The box never reached the destination. In 2006, the US Department of Veteran Affairs lost a laptop containing information about 26.5 million veterans. The department ultimately agreed to a $20 million settlement, avoiding the potential $26 billion payout.
Through the years, hundreds of companies have experienced data breaches, placing millions of customers and employees at risk of fraud and identity theft. Causes of data breaches include hacking, insider leaks, poor security, accidental uploads, and—as in the aforementioned cases—lost or stolen media. Organizations that fall victim to data breaches can be liable for millions of dollars in damages, and most don’t have taxpayer money to bail them out.
Cases like these highlight a major threat to any organization’s security: storage devices. Assets such as laptops, hard drives, phones, and USB drives with sensitive data pose a great risk in the wrong hands. According to recent research by Blancco, “A third of the world’s largest enterprises use inadequate data sanitization to prevent data breaches at end-of-life,” and four percent use no data sanitization method at all. Assets which have not been properly sanitized are dangerous in the wrong hands.
Deleting files and formatting drives aren’t enough. In order to protect your data, you need certified data sanitization and destruction. Finding an ITAD vendor to keep your company safe shouldn’t be a challenge. CSI EPC offers certified data sanitization and destruction according to NIST standards. Give us a call at (636)443-1999 for more information.