Why is data destruction important? Here’s why…
Data has become an important treasure to malicious entities, who may want to misuse it for their profit to the detriment of the data owners. All kinds of data are at risk of misuse. Hackers can sell proprietary business data to competitors, and they can use employee and client private data in identity theft attacks. As a result, data destruction has become one of the most critical tasks in information security.
What is Data Destruction?
When you hit the DELETE button, data on the storage media does not disappear completely and is easily recoverable. Formatting a storage media does not also destroy that data on it. It is harder to recover than deleted data, but it is possible to recover using advanced forensic tools.
Data destruction is a task that ensures data is irrecoverable and hence inaccessible by unauthorized parties. The average business has a lot of data on various storage media, including hard disks, thumb drives, optical media, cameras and mobile phones. Data erasure services ensure data on various storage media is destroyed forever and irrecoverable even with the most advanced forensic tools.
Why is data destruction important?
Data destruction is vital for any organization today for different reasons:
How about REGULATORY COMPLIANCE!
Data privacy has become a big concern for governments worldwide. As a result, tighter data privacy laws have been enacted in different countries. Some of the most prominent include:
- Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, US
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), US
- Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), US
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe
- Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), Singapore
These laws have prescribed harsh penalties for businesses that don’t secure their clients’ data. For example, the GDPR prescribes a fine of up to €20 million ($24.1 million), or 4% of the previous year’s turnover, whichever is higher.
Businesses that have already suffered the financial penalties of not adhering to this law include:
- British Airways fined €22 million ($26 million) for a data breach that affected 400,000 customers
- Marriott Hotels fined €20.4 million ($23.8 million) for a data breach that affected 30 million European customer records
- H&M fined €35 million ($41 million) for careless storage of employee data
Financial and legal penalties for non-compliance can cripple a business. SPW data erasure ensures private client data that is no longer useful is disposed of in a way that makes it inaccessible.
Protect Business Reputation
Besides financial penalties, losing reputation and customer trust is devastating to a business. A survey done in 2014 showed that 72% of small businesses that suffer data breaches shut down within 24 months.
While all data breaches are undesirable, some industries are more sensitive to these attacks. For example, client confidentiality is very desirable in the health and finance industries. Potential customers will be very reluctant to work with a brand that has a bad reputation for not keeping confidentiality. Observation of data destruction ensures you keep your customers’ confidentiality by protecting their data.
Protect Business Competitiveness
Why is data destruction important in large corporations? Well, corporate espionage has become a big threat to proprietary data as business competitors try their best to get ahead. Product research and development are long and expensive, and competitors are always trying to cut out the expenditure while enjoying an innovative edge.
Hackers are always on the lookout for confidential business data they can sell to the competition. Alternatively, they will blackmail the business to pay a ransom for not selling the data. Either way, it is a loss for the business that has suffered data loss.
Data erasure services help safeguard confidential business data on end-of-life equipment meant for recycling or physical destruction. It prevents this data from falling accidentally into the hands of unauthorized parties or being recovered by hackers.
Enhance Cost Efficiency
Data storage is an expense in terms of the cost of the space occupied by storage media. In addition, it is an expense to rent space to stockpile end-of-life equipment. It would be cost-effective to dispose of this equipment and use the space in more productive ways or stop renting.
Stockpiling data is also inefficient in using storage media. It is more cost-effective to wipe data off hard disks and recycle them. Most of today’s storage media is rewritable and can be recycled many times without loss of data integrity.
Environmentally Friendly Disposal
Recycling IT resources has become internationally recognized to reduce the impact of electronic waste on the environment. Secure data destruction enables businesses to recycle their equipment with confidence. You can reuse this equipment in the business instead of purchasing new equipment. You can also donate it to charity for education programs.
Recycling reduces the need to clog landfills with non-biodegradable waste. It also reduces the extraction of resources like lithium, making it more sustainable for the environment.
Secure data destruction is vital for both for-profit and nonprofit entities. Data erasure services protect the interests of a business and its clients when done competently. Information best practices must include routine data destruction using a competent partner like SPW data erasure services.
