Many of us, rather majority of us aren’t aware about the importance of secure IT disposal and safety issue of the official and confidential data on our laptops, hard drives, sticks, etc. We generally try to get rid of the unwanted or confidential data so that it does not get hacked or accessed by some outsider, simply by deleting the data on our tablets, or pc’s or laptops, etc. But, it isn’t simple as that because with the advancement of technology simply deleting your data from your gadgets does not make it safe. There are a variety of applications available online which help you to procure or restore the deleted data easily. So, it’s not just about deleting your data but wiping it out completely so that no one has access to it ever again. That is what secure IT disposal is all about.

SIGNIFICANCE OF SECURE IT DISPOSAL

Secure IT disposal is very important for a safe business because if the data is not secure there is a risk o the data getting leaked out or hacked by unauthorized people be it ex-employee, competitors, enemies and compliance problems as well as serious breaches related to data protection might occur. Unauthorized people with the motive of selling your private information to your competitors are very likely to try and access your organizations data.

During times of high recession, like these present times, a lot of employees have been sacked, these disgruntled employees are very likely to use your sensitive data or sell it or misuse it in many ways than one. Hence, prevention is always better.

As information protection and privacy regulating laws are getting stringent in mostly all the major fields of business including Finance, Banking, Government, Healthcare, etc, it is important that the IT disposal is managed properly so that unnecessarily you don’t end up getting into some legal soup that could cost you a fortune. Also, if it does not cost you a fortune, still it can be a very serious negative PR for your brand and could affect your brand’s image. There have been examples in the past wherein a credit card firm did not discard the personal information of their clients properly and had to face legal action and fine for the same and a warning about severe punishments in case of repeated negligence in data disposal.

STANDARD DATA DESTRUCTION METHODS

Those organizations which are aware to some extent about the importance of data disposal are into data destruction activities. Basically, there are three ways in which these people dispose of the confidential or private data and these are most commonly used ones. One is the physical destruction method, wherein the hard drive or the gadget is completely destroyed with the help of various techniques, one example is disk shredding. The second method of data destruction is degaussing wherein the magnetic field of the storage media is destroyed completely. The last one is by overwriting the data viz covering the old data by writing new on it. Some organizations also use more than one ways to secure their data.

Here are a few tips on how you can make your business safe by taking these steps towards secure data disposal

TIPS ON SECURE IT DISPOSAL

Total Data Destruction a must

As mentioned earlier simply deleting the data does not mean data destruction. Proper methodology has to be implied for destruction of data, three basics are already mentioned before. Wipe of the data in a way that it cannot be reused or accessed again.

Hiring a Data Disposal Company

For systematic and secure IT disposal outsourcing the recycling and destruction to a reputed and reliable IT disposal company is also a good idea. This ensures the elimination of sensitive data successfully and safely. So, whenever you outsource this service always check out whether the process used by the company is accredited, check all the terms and conditions of the contract before signing it, from your legal advisor, certificate of destruction is very necessary also and testimonials and reference from existing customers of the company too.

These are simply a few important tips on data disposal and the advantage of doing so for carrying out your business smoothly.