By Mark Ballard for The Register.
This article has been reproduced with permission.
They also discovered details of a US defence contract along with
personal information about a defence contractor that could be used
for blackmail.
About 300 second hand computer hard disks were bought by
researchers wanting to find out how well people protected sensitive
data when they got rid of their old hardware.
Two of the drives were suspected of containing "potential
paedophile" material, said Andy Jones, head of technology research
at BT's security research centre. The drives, one found in
Australia and one in Britain, were handed over to the police.
The point of the research was to find out if people were taking
care to erase legitimate personal data when they got rid of their
old computers; and whether it was possible to steal identities from
old hard disks bought down the car boot sale.
Of the readable drives, 49 per cent contained sensitive personal
information, found researchers from BT, the Universities of
Glamorgan, Wales, and Edith Cowen, Australia and data wiping
specialist LifecycleServices.
Jon Godfrey, of Lifecycleservices, said 95 per cent of people
fail to properly erase their old hard disks before they throw them
out.
"Every hard drive contains so much information about you
[criminals] would be able to profile you as a person, your tastes,
your habits," he said.
They were encouraged that more than twice the hard disks had
been properly wiped compared to those they rifled through when they
did the same survey last year. But 60 per cent of the disks were
still stuffed with readable data, the research will reveal in the
Autumn edition of the Journal of Digital Forensics Security and
Law.
Commercial data appeared on 47 per cent, including the complete
customer database of a telecoms firm. Another included a bid for a
contract to build a US Navy Destroyer - along with embarrassing
personal information about the contractor.
"For corporates, it's nothing short of negligence," said Jones.
"They've a responsibility of care under the Data Protection Act and
responsibility to their shareholders."
Most companies take care to wipe their data from old machines,
he said. But some contracted the job out and never checked to see
if their recyclers were doing a proper job.
he same topic was tackled from a similar angle by a BBC
documentary on Monday. BBC Journalists discovered that computers
being thrown into municipal tips were being sorted by councils and
sold for reuse in India and Nigeria.
Drives unearthed in markets in such places as Lagos contained
enough personal information about people in suburban Britain for
their identities to be snatched quite confidently, said the report.
© The Register 2006
