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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."
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"
in those people's defense, it is difficult to completely wipe mobile devices. using the device's own wipe/format tools does not guarantee the device does not have residual data. it's easier to wipe a hard disk on a PC (using DBAN or similar), but mobile devices are not as easy to format and clean.
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.