In 2011, University of California San Diego (UCSD) researchers released a series of white papers revealing the security flaws found in solid state drives. These whitepapers discuss how, in the race for hard drive OEM’s to get new solid state devices to market, OEM’s haven’t all abided by security protocols set forth by industry standards [...]
Archive for the ‘Data Security’ Category
20 Apr
The myth of the 3-pass DoD data destruction policy.
Over the last 17 years we have all heard of DoD 5220.22-M 3-pass. It has been touted as the standard for data sanitization. The problem that I see with this is that it is a standard that the technology has outgrown. The exact verbiage used in the matrix in the original document that has everyone stuck is “Overwrite all [...]
9 Apr
Technology Recycling – Social or Legal Responsibility
The Rocky Mountain Chapter of HDI met at LifeSpan for their February meeting. It included a tour and a presentation from company President Dag Adamson. They featured the meeting in their quarterly newsletter, which you can view here. LifeSpan was delighted to host the group!
7 Mar
Thailand Floods Impact Now – Hard Drive Shortages
The hard drive manufacturing shortage has created opportunity for some manufacturers that have weathered the floods in Thailand better than others, namely Seagate. This shortage has affected PC industry shipments, which were down 1.4 percent for the fourth quarter 2011 compared to the previous year. Some analysts don’t attribute this to the Thailand floods and [...]
16 Mar
Data Breach Costs Continue to Rise
InformationWeek recently analyzed a Symantec Publication: “The average cost of a data breach for a U.S. company continues to rise, having reached $7.2 million in 2010. This represents an increase of 7% from 2009, when the average cost was found to be $6.8 million, according to Symantec which published “2010 Annual Study: U.S. Cost of a Data [...]
23 Sep
Security Review for BlackBerry Recycling – Releasing the PIN with your Carrier
While a BlackBerry PDA can be re-initialized and the SIM card destroyed, a security issue still may reside in the wireless carrier’s network. Coordinating a BlackBerry PIN release is necessary in order to assure that a BlackBerry can be refurbished, remarketed, and recycled with no data privacy exposure. As organizations continue to upgrade with newer [...]
21 Sep
How to minimize the risks of a data breach
The New Hampshire Business Review Recently published the following article. Within the article they list the following steps all businesses should consider taking to minimize the risks associated with a breach: Create and communicate a detailed information security plan, including incident notification and response which is updated annually. Institute and keep a “clean desk” policy [...]
31 Aug
Is Nationwide Data Breach Legislation on the Horizon?
In the past two months, there have been two bills introduced in Washington, D.C. that are attempting to set nationwide standards for the security and privacy of consumers’ personal information. There are already 46 different data breach notification laws in 46 states with somewhat different and inconsistent provisions regarding the notification of consumers. One of [...]
18 May
Do your copy machines pose a security risk?
CBS News reports on how many companies are unaware that their copy machines contain storage media that needs to be sanitized prior to resale or recycling: Is your IT asset management company providing certification that storage media is being destroyed in ALL assets? It’s a question worth asking.
