While many data breaches stem from hackers exploiting poor security, breaches happen in other ways. For example, disgruntled employees will sometimes expose sensitive information as revenge. A less malicious way that breaches happen stems from poor hard drive destruction. Unless you use very thorough procedures, old hard drives will still retain data. That makes shredding the safest route for hard drive destruction. Let's jump in and take a deeper look at some of the reasons why. 1. Regular Magnets Won't Do It's a common refrain that computers and magnets don't mix. That's true, but only to some extent. Traditional hard drives use magnetic platters for data storage. A magnet can demagnetize those platters in a process called degaussing. The part that gets left …show more content…
Software-Based Erasing Fails Rather than attacking an old hard drive with magnets, some people opt for a software-based solution. The idea is that the data goes away if you overwrite the drive. While this approach can destroy some of the data, it often leaves behind data "ghosts." People who know how to look for it can find those ghosts. It's not a phantom fear, either. A recent study reports that around 40% of resold hard drives contain retrievable personal information. 3. Reformatting Isn't Enough Deleting files and reformatting the drive is another common approach for destroying data on a hard drive. This approach removes address information from existing files. That makes it impossible for a casual search to turn up data. The problem is that lots of data stays on the drive. Think of all that data like books on a bookshelf. What deleting and reformatting does is a bit like ripping the covers off of all the books. You don't know what each book contains anymore, but the information is still available inside the books. 4. Physical Damage Only Stops Amateurs Some people prefer the brute force approach. They'll drill a hole straight through their hard drives, hit them with hammers, or burn