Safely retiring your old work device or computer is key to protecting the safety and integrity of your clients, staff, business and stakeholders.
Improper disposal of your old laptop, PC or hard drive can leave you, and those around you, exposed. Hard drives are designed to save EVERYTHING. All your information like staff and client data, documents, emails, passwords, tax returns and medical records.
Unfortunately, just deleting the files isn’t enough. All this does is remove the shortcuts, or the pathways, to the data. It doesn’t erase the files themselves. They’re still on the hard drive!
Even if you ‘format’ the drive or disk, recovery programs can still locate and recover the files relatively easily.
So where does this leave you to ensure your security and safety?
Option 1 is to physically destroy the hard drive. Take an axe, or a hammer, and break it into pieces (and then recycle those scraps of metal responsibly).
Option 2 is to do a ‘disk wipe’. What this means is to overwrite all the 1’s and 0’s with more 1’s and 0’s, corrupting and confusing all the data that is on the device.
The Cyber Collective is on a mission to make sure every client in Australia can trust their financial professionals to protect their data. Join us on this mission by ensuring you retire your devices properly and protect the integrity of all stake holders.
For more insights on what you can do for financial professional firms, visit www.thecybercollective.com.au