Data security is one of the biggest concerns in the modern business world. Data storage is perhaps second to this. When you engage in EMC hardware products to store customer details; you are merging both into one hotbed of potential scandal and company problems. If you know how to permanently erase the data from your EMC storage arrays then you negate at least one of these two problems.
Data Breaches are Big Business to Hackers
Every year, security breaches cost firms vast amounts of money. Digital Guardian puts the actual cost to reputation and to the business of a single firm hit by a data breach at $8.19 million. If your firm isn’t vast enough to soak that damage then it could spell the end of your business. Let’s face it; there are very few firms capable of soaking up such a financial blow.
The problem of data storage breaches becomes of significant importance to those that are selling on used EMC Storage to offset losses caused by out-dated equipment. How do you know that the storage device you are selling on has been cleared of all the data? Typically, most people would simply select all and delete. Unfortunately, when it comes to programming, the world is not nearly as straight forward as you might believe.
Data Laws are there to Protect Consumers
Data laws were brought into play to protect the consumer’s data during the whole of its life cycle. This means well beyond the time when the purchase has been made. You, as a business, are bound by law to get rid of this data, permanently, before you either:
- Return your leased EMC storage equipment
- Sell your EMC storage on
- Repurpose old EMC IT products into new ones
- Or destroy the hardware. Remember – physically destroying a drive does not necessarily destroy the data[i]
So how do you permanently delete the data? Let’s find out.
Permanently Deleting Data
You can permanently delete data using a variety of methods. If you are a large firm and you have your own IT department then this is easiest. Ultimately you can have your technicians track down the command line to permanently erase data from each device. This does take some time but again if you have your own IT department that is kind of what you are paying them for!
If you are the owner or manager of a small business who wants to delete data then outside help might be your best bet. You can either sell your used EMC storage n to a firm that specializes in repurposing it; or you can hire a firm to make sure the data is deleted before you get rid of the hardware. When you consider the skills and time needed for permanent deletion, hiring an expert is your only other option.
Whichever you choose to do, a reputable firm will make sure you are in full compliance with data regulations. Always seek a second opinion if you are unclear, but working with trustworthy firms is a good starting point. When it comes to data storage compliance it is better to be safe than to suffer the $8 million bill.
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Several errors in this article. The glaring one is that it points to a particular brand of storage device “EMC”. There are many, many more vendors and brands of mass storage out there than EMC. Is the Author suggesting that wiping data only works on EMC devices? The second is the conclusion of the article that suggests there is a proper ‘Command Line’ command that can be run to permanently erase data. That is false. There isn’t. It takes more than a command line execution to do this. It takes an application that will write 1’s and 0’s alternately to the storage device many times over to remove the data. Data can be recovered from a device that has had the data removed via a single delete command.