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Wealth of Personal Data Found On Used Electronics Purchased Online
An anonymous reader writes: After examining 122 used mobile devices, hard disk drives and solid state drives purchased online, Blancco Technology Group and Kroll Ontrack found 48% contained residual data. In addition, 35% of mobile devices contained emails, texts/SMS/IMs, and videos. From the article: "Upon closer examination, Blancco Technology Group and Kroll Ontrack discovered that a deletion attempt had been made on 57 percent of the mobile devices and 75 percent of the drives that contained residual data. Even more compelling was the discovery that those deletion attempts had been unsuccessful due to common, but unreliable methods used, leaving sensitive information exposed and potentially accessible to cyber criminals. The residual data left on two of the second-hand mobile devices were significant enough to discern the original users' identities. Whether it's a person's emails containing their contact information or media files involving a company's intellectual property, lingering data can have serious consequences."
this is why when i sell my old electronics, the drive comes out
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
a local University 'surplused' some used copiers, and found out the hard way that the hard-drives kept copies of all copies.
Scrounging through San Francisco thrift stores some years ago, I bought a used Compaq "lunchbox" portable computer: 486 CPU, color screen, On it was a directory named "Bechtel"; which contained *.idx files and an internet hyperlink. So, of course, I followed it -- no password required. It took me somewhere within Bechtel's network (for those who don't know, Bechtel wanted to dam the Mekong River, and the US sent advisors to show the Vietnamese how to protect the construction workers from attacks from peasants who didn't want it).
I went no farther, but I have no doubt I could have....
Lots of personal data in /Myfiles, too!
Really, does this surprise anybody?
Headline should read, "Most People Too Stupid To Wipe Electronic Devices Before Selling Them", and it should be from the Really really shocking news dept"
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I work at a large thrift store and trust me. When the tech comes in it still in most cases has the donators stuff on it. From the hard drives we get to the routers and everything in-between.
I once bought a lot of used/returned MP3 players at auction. While I didn't get a wealth of personal data, I did get a wealth of "free" music. Based on value, I was actually paying for the music rather than the MP3 players.
Retailers don't have the resources to wipe the memory on returned devices, they rely on the people who buy the resold devices to be scrupulous.
We are the 198 proof..
The humanity!!
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Don't think for one minute that you can legally destroy the information you input to a computer before committing suicide. You children and/or ancestor/s will be held responsible, and will pay with their life.
There was a time when my daughter was really into blackberrys, because you could text really fast on the keyboard. She discovered that a local electronic junk store had a stack of various models of blackberry for something like five bucks apiece, so she bought three of them, and would put her sim in different phones depending on whether she felt like carrying a 6000 series or a 7000 series or a Curve.
Anyway, one thing she discovered is that none (0) of them had been wiped, and she had access to documents, baby photos and all kinds of stuff. Nothing pornographic, fortunately. At least, that she told me about.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Long, long ago in a land far away I bought some surplus computers from a uni i think it was. I STILL have Michelangelo virus on one of the 10MB hard drives, damn thing won't boot from floppy :/ Didn't realize it til I rebuilt a couple and infected my setup disks and my 386's antivirus went nuts. Hmm, I need to update that...
Still have an original Compaq computer from that batch tho :)
I could have gotten info off an old server I recycled if i tried and from a competitor no less :O
All these years I've never booted with his birthday. Hold my beer and watch this.....
Years ago I briefly volunteered for a charity organisation that would refurb old computers for poor families. The very first thing we did in all cases was pull the hard-drive, plug it into a box dedicated to the purpose and let dban do its thing. Only after this did we start testing, modding to meet minimum spec, installing a new OS etc.
It was just assumed that people would have left everything on the drive and we did not want to (a) end up being blamed if the giver's identity/cc details/whatever got stolen or, possibly worse, (b) have to deal with the unholy mess (police, evidence preservation etc) that could arise if we (or some poor kid who received the machine) found something dodgy/suss on the pc. We considered ignorance to be bliss.
This was all long ago: quite how one does this with a smartphone, ipad or similar is something I do not know, but I presume it must be possible. That said I'd think twice before selling or donating one.
And when they do "wipe" a device they still could leave thousands of emails behind. Some of them might even be classified.
It wasn't and required another's account removed, all of this Mexicans information was displayed down to their credit card number, and other personal info; making sure we wanted this information removed.
We did laugh at it later thinking of the problems this person would of had if we were that type.
I work for a company that buys used Apple computers from people and resells them. The very first thing we do is a 7-pass DoD compliant erase of the drive(s) when we receive a trade in. We also have a machine that will punch a hole through the platters if we really want to make sure info can't be retrieved.
AGAIN???!!! :/
When will this news item stop being regurgitated. OF COURSE information will be found on discarded storage devices.
We know, it's logical and expected, and we have been informed by jobless journalists a zillion times already.
> Wealth of Personal Data Found On Used Electronics Purchased Online
was a wealth of personal data found on used electronics purchased online, or was a wealth of personal data, found on used electronics, purchased online?
Erasing isn't enough, you have to overwrite the file system with random data ..
Kroll Ontrack participates in a "study" or releases similar information/stats/observations about once a year that determines the same thing. Storage is..... capable of storing data. Tech news picks it up like it is something new that no one knew or thought of before and Kroll gets free advertising.
My Samsung Galaxy S3 was an awesome phone, up until the moment it died without warning. It was simply sitting on my desk charging one moment, and then completely gone the next. Battery swap didn't fix it.
I had insurance on the phone and ended up using it, but the phone was dead and there was no way to wipe it. I had to send back the dead one as-is in exchange for a replacement. What happened to that broken phone, I have no idea, but it would not surprise me if a pile of broken phones ended up being repaired and all bets are off.
Sig for hire.
Your Mobile Carrier can tell you who owned any device that has ever been activated on the network.
Hence, if you want to avoid this situation, don't give your wireless carrier the IMEI of your device. However, if the device is ever stolen, they can't blacklist it either.
If you want to avoid a situation where you sell a phone, and the next person who gets it is a snoop. Wipe the device, explicitly phone up your wireless carrier and remove the IMEI from the account and cancel the line it's attached to if there is no replacement device. SMS tend to be stored in the SIM card unless the phone has been configured to do otherwise (which is basically every device made after 2004.)
Two years ago I bought a Certified Pre-Owned BMW from a dealer. It's basically a used car of a supposed "higher quality" from a dealer. Turned out that even though they do some sort of 5million point inspection, they forgot to clear the mp3 collection uploaded into the car's entertainment system, didn't clear the stored phonebook, nor the 10 recent phone numbers.