OPINION
Why your data centre drives need shredding The dangers of dead data by Philip McMichael, DiskShred Chief Operating Officer
The nature of the problem At end of service life every PC, laptop and server - as well as many laser printer-copiers – typically contain between one and twenty hard drives loaded with information. The chances are that some of that data is either sensitive or very sensitive – and in the wrong this can spell trouble. In today’s data centres and server
Philip McMichael reveals the secrets of the disk shredding industry...
rooms too, the widespread use of virtual servers means that it is all but impossible to know what information is on a particular storage device. Which means that it’s impossible to
know how sensitive that information is and so the only safe assumption is that it is highly sensitive and needs to be properly destroyed. The problem in today’s IT-centric
world is that you cannot simply `bulk format’ those disks. It is now simplicity itself - with software that is freely available on the Internet - to recover 90% of the data on a disk. The reality is that, if you do not
want to fall foul of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a data leak or breach and/or have your reputation dragged into the media.
Professional options Degaussing - this is a process where the disk is put through a very large electro-
magnet. In theory this should wipe the data completely, but in many cases the data wipe is either only partial – deleting elements of the data files – or does not reach far enough into the drive’s magnetic surface to be effective. Disk shredding - you can put each
hard disk through a massive physical shredding machine, which cuts it into small ‘chunks’. This process chops and grinds the hard disk into specific sized pieces, usually no bigger than a 20 pence piece– and although technically at this size the data could still exist on the chunks, it is not recoverable.
There are two main shredding services: Off-Site and On-Site...(mobile). Off-site shredding - this service is usually cheaper than the on-site option, simply because the supplier takes the disks away to a large factory-type facility where the shredding is done on an industrial scale. But this process is relatively dangerous
because you have no way of truly knowing what happens to it when it leaves your sight. It’s also very difficult to know whether
the disk went from your hands and into the destruction machine without being diverted or copied, since today’s high- speed computers can copy an entire drive in a matter of minutes. On-site shredding - in this process, a shredder within a lorry comes to your
site and you can accompany the disks into the lorry. You can then stand and watch as they are processed to industry approved standard sizes such as 20mm or even 5mm scraps.
Levels of shredding Just like with paper shredding, there are different levels of shredding involved with disk drives. Some shredding systems physically crush the drives before breaking the resultant mangled metal and plastic ensemble into pieces, but most modern services chop the units into small chunks. Disk drives come in many shapes
and sizes, raging from high capacity three inch drives, down to one-half inch spinning platters in very tiny computer systems - and also use solid state drives, where the data is stored on a series of tiny chips no larger than a finger nail. Most commercial drive shredders will
guarantee a maximum chunk size using defined industry standards. Generally speaking these maximum chunk (particle) sizes fall into 20mm-plus, 20mm, 10mm and 5/6mm levels. Which chunk size you opt for
depends on the type and sensitivity of the data held on the drive, as well as the degree of commercial risk you are willing to shoulder.
Choosing the best option If you have disks with personally identifiable information and/or high- sensitivity data on-board - or if the disks are from managed servers or cloud computing servers, the financial and business penalties are potentially huge. The bottom line to this cost-benefit
equation is that the best form of insurance is paying a little extra to a fully certified operator like DiskShred for the certainty that your data on the drives really has gone forever.
http://diskshred.eu
Old drives: professional handling required 18 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 1 2013
www.netcommseurope.com
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