Seek and Destroy; Digital Media Backup Tapes Storage and Destruction
Posted by admin @ 6:44 pm
An easier way to information compliance
Categories: Data Destruction
Tags: backup tape destruction, backup tape retention policy, electronic media destruction services, secure information destruction services, SecurShred, ship and destroy
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Hard Drive and Electronic Media Destruction Services Confidential information stored on your hard drives is another target for identity theft. When organizations upgrade their computers, they often remove the hard drives, use software to erase the data and send them to computer recyclers. Although the programs overwrite or erase some of the data, some just delete the directories on the drive and the actual data remains. Simply by using other available software, the information can be restored. Hard drives can have corrupt portions that cannot be over written, this unbeknown error can give someone access to confidential information believed to be destroyed. This leaves organizations vulnerable. Erasing your hard drive doesn’t mean the data’s gone. However there is another way. Hard drive destruction is proven to be the only 100% secure way to destroy data from hard drives. This method is indeed permanent; once your hard drive is pulverized/crushed and then shredded, there is simply no way to retrieve the data. Your data lives on spinning platters located inside the case of the hard drive. Once crushed, these platters are no longer able to spin and be used. By physically destroying the hard drive and disposing/recycling the minute particles that remain, you ensure that your data is safe. SecurShred is AAA NAID certified for hard drive destruction. With the use of our Hard Drive Hammer, SecurShred is able to crush your hard drive. This HD crushing machine is specifically designed to crush hard drives so that no data can ever be reconstructed or retrieved. Before SecurShred recycles your hard drive, it is shredded into tiny pieces and then melted back into its original mineral state. The Destruction Process SecurShred & Ship-n-Destroy offer a few options dedicated to electronics recycling and hard drive destruction. #1 – SecurShred SecurShred accepts these electronics for hard drive and media destruction service: Hard Drive (laptops, desktops, servers, PATA, SATA, etc.) Backup Magnetic Tapes (DLT, mini cartridges, VHS, Beta, etc.) Floppy Disk (3.5” disk, 5.25” disks) Zip Disk (And other large disks) Optical Media (CD’s DVD’s, Blue Ray, and HD DVD) #2 – Ship-n-Destroy No one is immune to Identity Theft. Prevent this from happening to you and your organization. Shred your old papers; destroy old hard drives and electronic media. Due diligence really is your best defense against identity theft. Fill out a quote for destruction service or call us today for more information. 877-863-3003 x 1 | info@shipndestroy.com.
Posted by admin @ 4:25 pm
Hard drive and electronic media destruction is the 100% secure way to permanently destroy your data
Dedicated consoles, clearly labeled for media destruction are provided to customers who choose this secure process. Similar to our paper shredding services, SecurShred provides an unbroken chain of custody for media destruction, from the time the hard drives are placed in the consoles until they are pulverized. These can be picked up on a routinely scheduled service date, quarterly, semi-annually or annually.
Send us your media from your home or office using either our Premium or Regular service. Simply fill out an online quote, click buy it now, and send us your electronics to be destroyed and/or recycled. UPS ships anywhere in the US. It is fast, secure and easy!
Categories: Electronics Recycling
Tags: electronic media destruction, electronics recycling, hard drive destruction, hard drive recycling
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SecurShred Only Uses R2 Certified Electronics Recyclers SecurShred, in its efforts to promote responsible and green recycling, only uses R2 certified recyclers to handle your electronic waste. R2 stands for Responsible Recycling, a set of requirements and practices which verifies that a company is properly handling, recycling and disposing electronic scrap, along with ensuring worker health and safety and proper data security practices. The R2 standard is supported by major electronic OEM’s, The United States EPA, state and local governments, and other influential environmental interests groups. In July of 2011, the National Government implemented the National Strategy for Electronic Stewardship, which was presented by the Interagency Task Force on Electronics Stewardship and co-chaired by the White House Council on Environment Quality, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the General Services Administration. From computers and cell phones, to portable communication devices and music devices; the U.S. is, and will continue to be, a global leader in designing and developing new and improved electronics. With these technologies, however, comes the increasing challenge of protecting human health and disposal of these products. The strategy was created to help better manage electronics. You can be assured your electronic waste is properly destroyed and recycled. Our recycler recycles 100% of the recyclable materials from all computer equipment we deliver to them at their facility in the U.S. What cannot be recycled is incinerated and used to produce energy. Landfilling computer equipment is not safe for many reasons, nor is it legal in many states including Vermont. For more information or if you have any questions, please visit our website at www.securshred.com or email us at info@securshred.com.
Posted by admin @ 7:32 pm
Our downstream electronics recycler is R2 Certified as well as ISO 14001 Certified by SGS (Société Générale de Surveillance). SGS is the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. They are recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity.
We have taken great strides in keeping a clean carbon footprint. Our trucks use bio diesel and bio oil in their hydraulic systems, and our employees are encouraged to do their part by participating in our recycling program. They are given reusable drinking containers and recycling bins have been placed throughout the work place. Our mission to be a green company is accomplished by providing environmentally responsible, best practices recycling services and green job opportunities and worker training.
Categories: Electronics Recycling
Tags: E-cycling, E-waste, Green Recycling Efforts, hard drive destruction, US Computer Recycling Company
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As E-waste Piles Grow, So Does the Risk of Identity Theft Do you have a scary closet at home or work that contains a bunch of stuff that you don’t know what to do with? Whether there are a few old cell phones, an old computer or an outdated PDA, we find ourselves with a growing pile of electronics in need of disposal. Now, think about all of the electronics that you have at work. Everyone seems to have a work computer these days. I’ve seen these “scary closets” all over Vermont. They range in size from a coat closet to a whole basement to pallets of material in a warehouse. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 75% of electronic waste, ready for end of life recycling, either goes out with the trash or sits in storage. In 2009, there were 438 million electronic devices sold. That year, 4.74 billion pounds of electronics was ready for end of life management. So, what do you do with dead computers and their confidential information? This is the question that we all face, today. Whether you’re deciding what to do with your old home computer, or you need to recycle 100 computers for your business, what should you do with them? First of all, don’t throw them in the trash. That’s illegal and puts hazardous waste into our environment. Secondly, consider if your electronics contain confidential information that needs to be securely disposed, if so, remove it. Ten years ago, would you have thrown your old tax return into the trash? Probably not, you would have recycled it, at a minimum because this option is better for the environment. Today, would you throw your old tax return into the recycling? Probably not, you would shred it because this option is more secure. We need to think of our electronics the same way. We’re at a turning point in the way E-waste is disposed. Responsibly recycling your material is an important step, but shouldn’t be your first step. For your protection from identity theft and your business’ compliance, you must first consider the secure disposal of any hard drives, and other electronic storage devices such as backup tapes, DVDs, thumb drives, etc. The recycling risks of these devices are real and extensive as computers can be handled by countless people and companies before they eventually get recycled. To give you a visual on the data that can be stored on a 500 gigabyte computer hard drive, imagine a storage room filled with approximately 10,000 records storage boxes full of paper. Could you imagine if a Vermont business threw all of these boxes into the trash or recycling stream? In fact, an MIT study showed that 146 of 158 used hard drives purchased on the internet for $1,000 were not properly sanitized and contained a bevy of confidential information such as credit card numbers, medical records and corporate financial records. We don’t know if any of those hard drives originated in Vermont. Today, the vast majority of identity theft occurs with electronic data versus paper. Confidential information is confidential information, regardless of it being on paper or on a hard drive, and it must be properly destroyed. In order to protect confidential personal and business information and prevent identity theft, the U.S. and Vermont governments have created and enacted laws to help prevent this from happening. These laws have one thing in common; they all require businesses to safeguard consumer confidential information, regardless of its form. In Vermont, the Vermont E-cycles Program was established in 2011. This program allows free drop-off of certain electronic waste devices for residents, 501c3 charities, school districts and small businesses of ten or fewer employees at convenient locations around the state (www.vtecycles.org). There are also several companies in Vermont that collect, process and/or store electronics for eventual end-of-life recycling out of state. SecurShred, Vermont’s first certified hard drive and other electronic storage media destruction company, provides services for businesses and individuals throughout the state. “The security of any personal data or information (such as social security number, tax or banking, business records, or personal identification, etc.) is the sole responsibility of the owner of the electronic device being dropped at a Collection Location for recycling. Don’t simply delete files or reformat your hard drive. This does not destroy all the data.” – Vermont E-cycles The good news is that electronics recycling is becoming easier and safer for the environment every day. However, the risk of identity theft is now more digital than ever. So before you recycle or donate your old electronics, think about your data on that device because that’s exactly what the identity thieves are thinking about. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ David Van Mullen Certified Secure Destruction Specialist SecurShred | Ship-n-Destroy Email: david@securshred.com
Posted by admin @ 7:04 pm
Categories: Electronics Recycling
Tags: computer recycling, electronic waste, recycle electronics, risk of identity theft
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SecurShred Providing Electronic Data Destruction Solutions Residents and Businesses Are Learning That Electronics Recycling may not be Compliance So. Burlington, VT – March 26, 2012 – Hard Drive Destruction and Electronics Recycling Risks Today’s computers are faster, more efficient, come with bigger storage and processing capacities and are being produced at virtually the same price now as they were 18 months ago. This advancement in new technology has created a problem in terms of what to do with our old technology. In order to keep up, companies need to continually upgrade their software and electronics. This creates a tremendous amount of e-cycling waste and increases the risk of confidential material being leaked and the potential of identity theft. In 2009, 5 million tons of electronics were in storage and 2.37 million tons of electronics were ready for end-of-life management. Out of that, only 25% was collected for recycling. (www.epa.gov, October 2011) Many people are misinformed or not properly educated on what to do with their old technology once it has become obsolete and is ready for the scrap pile. The risk lies with the handling, access, storage, and disposal of the hard drives housed within every computer and removable electronic storage devices. Computer hard drive storage capacity keeps growing. The new norm is at least 500GB of storage. That is a lot of information on a drive that can fit in your hand. “To give you a visual on the data that can be stored on a 500 gigabyte computer hard drive, imagine a storage room filled with approximately 10,000 records storage boxes full of paper” – Magda Van Ornum, Document Imaging Service Bureau Manager – SecurShred Hard drives containing confidential material can be found in numerous electronic devices such as laptop, desktop and server computers, smart phones, tablets, standard and multi-function printers, etc. A recent CBS News special investigation uncovered that digital photocopiers are being recycled with the hard drives still in them. Using a forensic software program available for free on the internet, Digital Copier Security Inc. downloaded tens of thousands of confidential documents from used copiers in less than 2 hours. (www.cbsnews.com, 4/19/10) “The day we visited the New Jersey (used copier) warehouse, two shipping containers packed with used copiers were headed overseas – loaded with secrets on their way to unknown buyers in Argentina and Singapore.” – Armen Keteyian, CBS News, chief investigative correspondent On April 19th, 2010, Governor Jim Douglas signed an electronics waste recycling law (S. 77 An act relating to the recycling and disposal of electronic waste), making Vermont the 21st state to have such a law in place. This law bans the landfilling of computers and other electronic devices that contain toxins such as lead, mercury, and chromium. After January 1, 2011, there is a ban on the disposal of the following electronic devices in landfills: Computers including laptops, computer monitors, device containing a cathode ray tube, printers, televisions and personal electronics such as personal digital assistants, MP3s, electronic game consoles, fax machines, wireless telephones, telephones, answering machines, VCRs, DVD players, digital converter boxes, stereo equipment, and power supply cords (as used to charge electronic devices). Besides being harmful to our environment, there are now strict fines associated with landfilling computer equipment. Across the country, individual States have begun to work with local recycling and waste removal services to offer computer and monitor recycling for free. Though these programs are intended to help with the back log of computers in storage and to keep them out of landfills, there is still the concern of the confidential information that is housed in them. The majority of these free drop-off facilities do not offer hard drive sanitation services. In 2011, Vermont established the Vermont E-cycles Program. This program allows free drop-off of certain electronic waste devices for residents, 501c3 charities, school districts and small businesses of 10 or fewer employees at convenient locations around the state (www.vtecycles.org, p800-223-0150). “The security of any personal data or information (such as social security number, tax or banking, business records, or personal identification, etc.) is the sole responsibility of the owner of the electronic device being dropped at a Collection Location for recycling. Don’t simply delete files or reformat your hard drive. This does not destroy all the data.” – Vermont e-cycles Companies and individuals trying to save money and/or recoup some of their losses on this old technology make a foolish mistake by thinking they can simply erase the data on their hard drives by conventional means. Reformatting is simply not a secure way to eliminate the information written on a hard drive. As long as a hard drive can spin, information can be extracted from them. Some sectors of a hard drive may not be successfully overwritten due to undetectable defects in them. The undetectable defects on the drive that were not wiped clean may actually enable retrieval in its next life. “There are many stories in which somebody has bought a used computer and found confidential information on it, but nobody has ever quantified the scale of the problem, so we decided to find out.” – Simson Garfinkel, MIT graduate. In a study performed by two MIT graduates, 158 used hard drives purchased on eBay and other sources of used computer hardware were found to contain massive amounts of confidential information including credit card numbers and other financial information. The grads found that overwrite and delete software was ineffective at removing all data from the drives. “Imagine having to inform the CEO that 10 million customer records were retrieved off a tape which was sold for $14.00. Bottom line, never sell used media, destroy it. When selecting an outsourced firm (for hard drive destruction) require that they be NAID certified” – Ben Rothke, Author, Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know. In order to protect confidential personal and business information and prevent identity theft, the U.S. and Vermont governments has created and enacted laws to help prevent this from happening. These laws have one thing in common. They all require businesses to safeguard consumer confidential information, regardless of its form. “Electronic data destruction is to electronics recycling as paper shredding was to paper recycling. When we started SecurShred, here in Vermont in 1999, shredding paper was a new concept for many businesses, and people were simply recycling their confidential paper. Since the implementation of HIPAA and other laws and the dramatic increase in identity theft, paper shredding has become a standard business practice. Simply recycling hard drives containing confidential information is illegal for businesses and risky for individuals. Today, the vast majority of identity theft occurs with electronic data versus paper. Confidential information is confidential information, regardless of it being on paper or on a hard drive, and it must be properly destroyed” – Eric Flegenheimer, Owner – SecurShred. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ For a video demo of SecurShred’s hard drive destruction process, go to: For more information, contact:
Posted by admin @ 3:26 pm
www.securshred.com and click on the Hard Drive Destruction video on the home page
David Van Mullen
Certified Secure Destruction Specialist
SecurShred
472 Meadowland Drive
South Burlington, VT 05403
Phone(802)863-3003, ext. 6
Email: david@securshred.com
Categories: Electronics Recycling
Tags: electronics waste recycling law, hard drive destruction, potential identity theft, SecurShred, Vermont E-cycles Program
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Hard Drives Exposed It’s a chilly March Saturday at the Pit, a concrete holding pen for abandoned computer parts at the Needham, Massachusetts, town dump. Nearby, three locals wait patiently in their idling cars. An SUV pulls up. Driver James Curtin grabs an old PC from the back and puts it into the Pit alongside other CRT monitors and old computer chassis. Slowly the other men exit their cars and walk toward the discarded computer–one with a screwdriver in hand. For these PC scavengers, the Pit is a gold mine for memory chips, processors, and other components that they use to build PCs on the cheap. But they also routinely find something else: business and personal data that prior owners have left on discarded hard drives. “[On] almost every hard drive I pull, I’ll find a tax return or a resume,” says David Burns, who describes himself as a Needham regular. Properly sanitizing a hard drive before giving away or reselling a computer requires only a small investment of time and an inexpensive or free disk-erasing tool (see ” Data Killing 101″). But many people don’t even do minimal cleanup. Data Galore An examination of ten used hard drives we bought or salvaged in the Boston area disclosed a wealth of sensitive data. On all but one of them, we found data, including confidential business, medical, and legal records; Social Security, credit card, and bank account numbers; e-mail; and even pornography. Most of the information was easy pickings–even on four drives whose previous owners had attempted to erase data, either by deleting files and emptying the recycle bin or by reformatting the disk–measures that simply conceal the data from the operating system. Not surprisingly, the equipment’s former owners were shocked to learn that strangers had accessed their information. “I went through my PC and thought I had thoroughly deleted everything,” Curtin said of his old TriGem 486. A Boston computer store sold us a hard drive previously owned by an accountant–and crammed with four years’ worth of his clients’ payroll and tax information and employee Social Security numbers. The accountant said that his nephew, who worked at a computer store, had removed the drive while upgrading his old computer several months earlier. The accountant said that he never thought to ask his nephew what had become of the hard drive. Similarly, a Salvation Army store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sold us a PC that had once belonged to an attorney; it still contained bank account numbers, an active America Online account (and a stored password), and draft legal documents on its hard drive. “I most certainly never expected my personal information would ever be more than just that–personal,” said the attorney. He said his firm’s IT consultant had promised to properly destroy the data. Our samples confirmed the findings of a study conducted earlier this year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Two graduate students, Simson Garfinkel (who is also a prolific technology writer) and Abhi Shelat, bought 158 hard drives on EBay and from online shops. Of 129 drives that worked, 69 had recoverable files and 49 contained personal information, including 3700 credit card numbers, medical data, and pornography. Only 12 of the usable drives had been properly purged. “This is a serious problem,” Shelat says. Businesses become vulnerable when they unwittingly share sensitive information. And individuals leave themselves open to identity theft, a potentially ruinous crime that the Federal Trade Commission received nearly 162,000 complaints about in 2002–almost double the 2001 total. Tossing your old drive out with the trash is no guarantee that it–and your data–will find a quiet resting place in a landfill. And scavengers like those at the Needham Pit are only part of the picture. As more towns and cities ban PCs from their landfills, businesses are cashing in. Computer Salvage of New England collects old PCs and cannibalizes them for parts that it then sells. Similarly, the city of Cambridge pays a recycling company called Onyx Environmental Services to haul off PCs left for curbside pickup. Onyx salvages the parts and resells them. Research firm Gartner Dataquest reports that businesses and individuals took about 150,000 hard drives out of service in 2002. Meanwhile, reported incidents of data security compromised by improper disposal of unwanted PCs have increased exponentially, says Gartner research director Frances O’Brien. “Companies don’t think twice about giving hard drives a simple reformat and handing the PCs out to employees, charities, or whoever else can save them a buck on disposal costs,” O’Brien says. Even when people reformat the hard drive, a motivated sleuth can retrieve data using tools such as Norton SystemWorks’ Disk Editor or the free Disk Investigator. We did this on a drive purchased at the Super Computer Sale (a traveling computer fair), and uncovered research, e-mail messages, and a log of Web sites visited by employees at Fairfax Financial Holdings of Ontario, Canada. “It shouldn’t have happened,” said Brad Martin, Fairfax’s vice president of investor relations. “We are going to make sure that something like this never happens again.” Being able to recover deleted data can be useful: Ask anyone who’s ever accidentally trashed a file. Hard drive data can help nail criminals, says Tom Galligan, owner of Electronic Evidence Recovery of Tiverton, Rhode Island. But honest PC users have a legitimate interest in destroying data when they discard an old PC. Curtin wishes he had been more careful with his old drive. “I’ll never make that mistake twice,” he says. By Tom Spring, PCW Print
Posted by admin @ 8:44 pm
The lesson for PC users? Old hard drives don’t always die–or fade away. Often they are salvaged and reused in other computers. And when that happens, the data and sometimes-grimy secrets of previous users go with them.
Resurrected Drives
Deleted or Hidden?
Another used hard disk we bought at the computer fair had no operating system. But we identified the previous owner–and extricated 20MB of data documenting activities unprintable in this magazine.
Categories: Electronics Recycling
Tags: clean hard drive, computers, erase hard drive, format hard drive, How to Wipe a hard drive, landfills, recycling
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Hard Drive Destruction and Recycling Risks Today’s computers are faster, more efficient, come with bigger capacities and are being produced at virtually the same price now as they were 18 months ago. This advancement in new technology has created a huge mess in terms of what to do with our old technology. In order to keep up, companies need to continually upgrade their software and electronics. This creates a tremendous amount of e-cycling waste and increases the risk of confidential material being leaked or the potential of identity theft. In order to protect businesses and consumers the government has created and enacted laws to help prevent this from happening such as FACTA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, HIPPA, and the Red Flag Rules. In 2009, 5 million tons of electronics were in storage and 2.37 million tons of electronics were ready for end-of-life management. Out of that, only 25% was collected for recycling. (www.epa.gov, October 2011) Many people are misinformed or not properly educated on what to do with their old technology once it has become obsolete and is ready for the scrap pile. Did you know it is illegal to landfill computers and electronics? Computers, monitors, IPod’s, phones, etc all have hazardous materials in them such as lead, mercury, and chromium. Besides being harmful to our environment there are now strict fines associated with landfilling computer equipment. “If your discarded computers or monitors are found to be contaminating a landfill, your firm can be traced through the serial numbers recorded when they were originally purchased and you could be held liable for the clean up and/or given a substantial fine” (Legal Management, June 2007). Recently individual States have begun to work with local recycling and waste removal services to offer computer and monitor recycling for free. Though these programs are intended to help with the back log of computers in storage and to keep them out of landfills, there is still the concern of the confidential information that is housed in them. Majority of these facilities do not offer hard drive sanitation services or even check to see if the hard drives are still installed in the computers. There are also programs that are designed to help place computers into the hands of people that do not have them. This recycling program places refurbished computers into needy schools in all over the world. If you have a computer that is properly sanitized by a professional this is a great way to e-cycle your old computer. If you are a business or an individual that stores sensitive information on your computer, it is best to remove your hard drive and replace it before donating it to be on the safe side. Companies and individuals trying to save money and/or recoup some of their losses on this old technology make a foolish mistake by thinking they can simply erase the data on their hard drives by conventional means. Reformatting is simply not a secure way to eliminate the information written on a hard drive. As long as a hard drive can spin, information can be extracted from them. Some sectors of a hard drive may not be successfully over written due to undetectable defects in them. The undetectable defects on the drive that were not wiped clean may actually enable retrieval in its next life. Another mistake that is made is to resell the equipment on the mass market where it can be picked up by anyone with out proper sanitation being performed on the internal hard drives. “Remembrances of Data Past” (IEEE Security and Privacy, January/February 2003) concludes that “the secondary hard disk market is almost certainly awash in information that is both sensitive and confidential. The most secure way to ensure your information is safe is to remove your hard drive and to physically have it destroyed by a NAID Certified Company. The National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) is a watchdog organization of the secure information destruction industry. For many years, NAID has certified qualified companies that provide secure paper and hard drive destruction services. When choosing a computer disposal company there are 6 factors you should look at: 1. Is the vendor’s facility secure? 2. Does the vendor screen its employee’s? 3. Review the vendor’s written procedures and other paperwork. 4. Look beyond the vendor’s marketing claims. 5. Examine the vendor’s physical destruction capability. 6. Appraise the vendor’s security focus. 7. Know what your company is doing with its old computers. Despite the temptation to deal with computer disposal as just another facility management issue, the process you choose and the vendor you select speak to the integrity of your firm. The cost in time and dollars for appropriately protecting a firm’s vital information is well worth fulfilling this ethical responsibility so critical to a lawyer’s fiduciary charge. Destruction of your old hard drives does not have to be a scary process. SecurShred, a NAID Certified paper and electronic media destruction company has recently launched Ship-n-Destroy.com. Ship-n-Destroy is a secure online shipment destruction company that specializes in the secure destruction of electronic storage media such as hard drives & backup tapes, as well as, paper. It’s easy to Ship-n-Destroy! Simply fill out an online quote/order form, select one of two options, Premium or Regular Service, and ship us your material using a preprinted UPS shipping label. With Premium Service, you have the piece of mind knowing your confidential material will be transported to our facility using a lockable tote that comes with two numbered locks. Using Regular service, you are able to use your own packaging to ship your materials to our plant for destruction and recycling. At any time, you are able to track your package from our website under your account login. Ship-n-Destroy’s secure plant is operated by SecurShred, an information destruction & electronics recycling company, that has been certified for hard drive & paper media destruction for plant-based and mobile operation by the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID). SecurShred has been in business since 2000 and is an A-rated member of the Better Business Bureau. For more information regarding Ship-n-Destroy and SecurShred, visit our websites www.shipndestroy.com or www.securshred.com.
Posted by admin @ 7:45 pm
Categories: Electronics Recycling
Tags: computer recycling, electronics recycling services, hard drive destruction, hard drive recycling, US Computer Recycling Company
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Think about your hard drive before recycling your electronics Know where your desktop or laptop computer is being recycled. Every couple of years researchers try and see just how much personal information they can find on hard drives sold through the open, second hand market. Hard drives are obtained on the open, second hand market, usually from a range of resellers, but always include some obtained through eBay. The researchers examine the hard drives for personal or confidential information and report that about one-third of the hard drives contain personal information. There have been at least 5 of these studies in the last 6 years; always turning up some personal information. Do other electronics besides computers contain hard drives? YES! Surprisingly not many people realize just how manyelectronics created these days have a hard drive in them. As shown on 60 minutes, some electronics such as printers, copiers and facsimile machines do in fact contain a hard drive. This may not see like a big deal, after all what could those electronics hold in terms of information. They keep a copy of the documents sent to them and store that information on the hard drive. These hard drives hold only a certain amount of information and do eventually overwrite bits and pieces of information but always contain the most recent information just processed through them. Simply recycling these electronics and keeping them out of landfills is not enough these days. There have been numerous privacy breaches over the years which have lead to state and federal governments becoming involved and creating several acts and rules to safe guard consumers as well as the businesses that house this sensitive information. The most recognized acts and rules are the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Sarbanes Oxley Act, Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), and Red Flag Rules. Information disposal is already one of the largest concerns to the consumers and businesses, and avoiding the consequences of improper disposal is of major importance when selecting vendors to process and destroy equipment containing such sensitive information. Ship-n-Destroy’s secure plant is operated by SecurShred, an information destruction company that has been certified for hard drive, paper and media destruction for plant-based and mobile operation by the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID). SecurShred has been in business since 2000 and is an A-rated member of the Better Business Bureau. For more information about NAID
Posted by admin @ 6:22 pm
When buying or selling electronic equipment such as desktop or laptop computers make sure to remove, replace and destroy the hard drive. Simply reformatting the hard drive is not enough. This process does not completely wipe your sensitive information from the hard disk, but only cleans some of the information off of it. The reason for this is called “Hard Drive Defect”. This is an area of the hard drive that the reformat simply cannot overwrite. There are other forms of hard drive destruction or erasure such as drilling, overwriting, or degaussing, however, any forensic investigator can still extract information that was on the disk. The only sure method of destruction is by crushing your hard drive using an HD Hammer, which destroys the hard drive platter. This method assures that your information is permanently irretrievable. Make sure that you are using a company that is NAID certified to destroy hard drives. NAID certification assures you that the company destroying your hard drive has gone through stringent policies and procedures to insure your hard drive is properly destroyed and recycled. Examples of strict NAID standards are using bonded employees, that the facility is secure and monitored 24/7, the materials destroyed and recycled are done so by using “cradle to grave” recyclers located in the U.S. that keep your sensitive information from being recycled in foreign countries.
Categories: Electronics Recycling
Tags: CD Destruction, clean hard drive, computers, destruction, environment, erase hard drive, FACTA, format hard drive, hard drives, HIPAA, How to Wipe a hard drive, How to wipe hard drive, landfills, NAID Certified, privacy, protection, recycle electronics, recycling, remove hard drive, SecurShred, toxic, waste, Wipe a hard drive
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SecurShred Diverts Hazardous Materials from Landfills In most states, laws prevent companies from depositing environmentally harmful computers and electronics into our landfills, however, electronic waste accounts for 70 percent of the overall toxic waste currently found in them. Obsolete computer equipment is the fastest growing component in our landfills and is growing 3x faster then other waste. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s estimates, electronic products constitute 1% of municipal waste, with more than 63 million computers retired in the U.S. annually. Most electronic waste sits in a store room or closet taking up valuable office space instead of being properly recycled back into its original material for reuse. The average desktop computer contains heavy metals and plastics that may include mercury, lead, cadmium, chromium and lithium – all potentially hazardous to our health. When placed in a landfill, even in small doses, these materials can contaminate soil as well as drinking water. Here’s a breakdown of what toxic materials are found in an average electronic device. Computers - Lead is present in CRT computer monitors. Also, there are other toxic elements that you should be aware of when you’re recycling that PC or Mac. Many laptops have a small fluorescent lamp in the screen that contains mercury, a toxic material when inhaled or digested. Mercury is also found in computer circuit boards, along with lead and cadmium. Circuit boards can also include batteries made of mercury, as well as mercury switches. SecurShred uses end-of-life recyclers that comply with all State and Federal regulations that will recycle your hardware back into its raw materials for reuse. Our recyclers are located in the US and use a “cradle to grave” tracking system. This assures that the electronic waste does not end up in the hands of other companies, landfills or illegally exported to other nations. We make it simple for you, which is in turn better for our environment.
Posted by admin @ 2:04 pm
SecurShred diverts thousands of pounds of toxic waste from landfills every month. We care about our environment and the impact that we have on it, therefore we will pick up your electronic waste or give you the option to ship it to us for proper destruction and recycling. By diverting these electronics materials from the landfill and recycling them back into raw materials we are working hard to clean up our environment. We securely destroy electronic storage media and responsibly recycle computers and other electronic hardware and components for commercial businesses and consumers on a regular basis. Recycling your electronic waste is the right solution for today and our future.
Cell Phones – While your trusty cell phone may not contain as much toxic material as larger electronic devices, its shelf life is only about 18 months for the average consumer. It’s estimated that there are more than 500 million used cell phones ready for disposal. Cell phone coatings are often made of lead, meaning that if these 500 million cell phones are disposed of in landfills, it will result in 312,000 pounds of lead released. However, possibly the most hazardous component of the cell phone is the battery. Cell phone batteries were originally composed of nickel and cadmium (Ni-Cd batteries). Cadmium is listed as a human carcinogen that causes lung and liver damage. Alternatives contain potentially explosive lithium or toxic lead. While toxic materials comprise only a small amount of this volume, it doesn’t take much lead or mercury to contaminate an area’s soil or water supply.
Categories: Electronics Recycling
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