What is Data Destruction and How Does it Work?

27
Apr

Whether you are an individual or a company, you produce a ton of data. That data is all wonderful until it comes time to upgrade or purge your business of non–working devices. Just because those devices are old or broken, doesn’t mean their data isn’t going to be valuable to someone with nefarious purposes in mind. You want and need to ensure that your data is thoroughly destroyed. Are you looking for data destruction services in Wisconsin and Nebraska? Then you have come to the right place. Sadoff E-Recycling and Data Destruction is here to help.

Data Destruction Services in Wisconsin and Nebraska

Sadoff E-Recycling and Data Destruction offers thorough and complete data destruction services in Wisconsin and Nebraska. Whether you need a thumb drive wiped or 5,000 hard drives destroyed, the team at Sadoff is here to help. We have locations spread all across both states with locations in Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Manitowoc, Oshkosh, and Sheboygan in Wisconsin and Lincoln and La Vista in Nebraska with the last being a B2B location.

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What Companies Need Data Destruction Services?

You may think that data destruction is only needed for tech companies. Think again. These days, every company creates data. Small businesses, industrial companies, construction operations, and more may not rely on tech for day-to-day operation, but you use it, and in those devices, precious data is stored.

When you are getting rid of old computers, thumb drives, data discs, and even company phones, you can’t rely on wipes, formatting, or even throwing the devices away to destroy your data. You need to employ a data destruction service like what we have at Sadoff E-Recycling and Data Destruction.

Can You Just Erase Data on Your Own?

Sure, you can erase your data, and you can feel good about it when it’s erased because you can no longer access it. However, that’s far from the full story. Let’s just use one example, when you delete a file even from your recycling bin, do you know what actually happens? From a data standpoint, nothing.

Your hard drive doesn’t really delete anything, it just marks all that data as junk, and then when you save a file in the future, it might rewrite over some of that junk, and then again it might not. Even formatting a drive leaves a lot of data in a recoverable state with basic tools that anyone can download off the Internet.

You could take it a step farther and destroy the platters or circuits with power tools or what have you. Wear some safety goggles, because this is a good way to get hurt. Not to mention, you can still leave data behind that a resourceful person can utilize for nefarious purposes.

How Can Your Data be Used Against You?

It’s easy to think that you don’t have important data on your devices, but you should consider a few things before you get cavalier about how you handle those old hard drives, thumb drives, and phones.

Bank Accounts—Were any of those devices used to access financial accounts? Could passwords have been saved? Even basic account info? Do you want this in the hands of bad actors? This, if for no other reason, should be enough cause for concern to convince you to employ a data destruction service.
Client Information—Do you have clients? Is there information important to you? It should be because it was important to them when they provided it to you. Of course, if you have credit cards or bank info for them, that’s an issue of concern, but even having addresses, client account numbers, and phone numbers, can be enough for a resourceful person to scam your client base, and you will be at least partly to blame.
Trade Secrets—Do you have any trade secrets? Are they stored on any of your computers, phones, or storage devices? You may think that some bad actor isn’t going to care about your trade secret. It’s true, they won’t care about your unique concrete additives or the machine schematics for your latest production line, but they will try to find someone who does.

The type of criminal that uses your discarded data can be very resourceful. The last thing you want is to give them anything they can use to earn money. Make no mistake, their success is your loss, and you stand to lose far more than they gain.

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How Does Sadoff Destroy Your Data?

We actually provide two comprehensive means of data destruction, and they are both high-end versions of the methods we listed above.

Digital Destruction—You heard us say that traditional formatting, also known as drive wiping isn’t effective. However, our methods of drive wiping are a lot more advanced. If you want to get into the technical side of it. We use NIST800-88r1/DOD 5520.22 data wiping software. This software is expensive, requires a dedicated machine, and is time-consuming, but unlike what you could easily do on your own, it is 100% effective.
Physical Destruction—Remember the power tools we mentioned before? We have something a little bit bigger and more thorough. We can destroy your data by shredding it. Imagine a paper shredder on steroids. Once again, unlike what you could do with power tools in your garage or machine shop, it is 100% effective.