If you’re a packrat and don’t mind keeping old computers, especially if you keep them locked up, chances are, no one will steal the data off them. However, most people don’t want that stuff cluttering up their homes, so they throw the computers in the dump. However, that is not the best way to practice identity theft protection, even if you wiped those hard drives. The best way to make sure your identity doesn’t fall into the hands of an unsavory character is to use Royal Document Destruction’s secure hard drive shredding services. The only other way to render the data inaccessible is to take it to the range and shoot it until it’s demolished in a bazillion bitty pieces.
Professional Hard Drive Destruction
Hard drive destruction isn’t as easy as you might think. If you try to cook it in the microwave, you’d have to put it in there for quite a long time — and because of the metal in the drive, you’d probably trash your microwave. If you drop it in acid, you risk burning yourself with the acid. Not all digital media is magnetic anymore, so unless you are sure that yours is, using magnets to destroy the data won’t protect you against identity theft.
If you try to physically destroy the drive, you might leave bits where criminals can retrieve the data. The safest way to make sure your data is safe is to use Royal Document Destruction’s hard drive destruction services. We have shredders designed to make sure the data cannot be resurrected. And, once we shred your old hard drives and other digital media, you’ll get a certificate of destruction.
Protecting Your Identity with Hard Drive Destruction
Your hard drive contains data that makes it easy for identity thieves to steal your identity. Data that you would never think of is stored on the hard drive, including passwords to every account you have online, banking information, tax information and even utility bills or mortgage notification emails. Deleting hard drive data doesn’t mean it’s actually deleted. In fact, it’s probably still there — the pointer to the file is often the only thing removed. To ensure proper data destruction so that identity thieves cannot benefit from your old digital media, you need to shred that digital media.
In fact, Simon Garfinkel once bought several old hard drives on E-bay. One of them was the hard drive from an old ATM and had over 800 PINs. Another hard drive belonged to a medical center and had more than 31,000 credit card numbers on it. It is imperative to physically destroy old hard drives since criminals and hackers can almost always recover data.
Wiping the drive, deleting files, and even using a magnet on some drives is not effective. Even formatting the drive is not effective enough to stop data thieves.
Contact Royal Document Destruction
Contact Royal Document Destruction to discuss your hard drive shredding needs and other shredding needs. Whether you are a business or an individual, it is equally important to physically destroy old hard drives and other digital media. You can use our mobile services — our truck comes to you — or drop off documents and hard drives. We also have document pickup service if you can’t get your documents and digital media to us.
