This summer I had planned to do a dumpster-diving project with my sons, but then the Iowa floods postponed those plans. However, after reading the following I’m motivated to plan to do this in the spring after basketball and G&T activities are finished for the winter…
Posts Tagged ‘data disposal’
HIPAA Violation: Medical Clinic Leaves Box With PHI On Public Dumpster
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008Sloppy Disposal Aids Cybercriminals
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008For day 3 of Global Security Week I want to talk a little bit about the importance of securely disposing of your papers and storage media that contains personal information…
Laptop Containing PII of 1 Million+ People Sold On eBay for $141
Saturday, August 30th, 2008I’ve been doing a lot of work with data retention and disposal policies and procedures lately, remembering the silly things I have read about with regard to organizations getting rid of their computers, such as selling their computers on eBay when they no longer need them…without removing the information! This is certainly not a phenomenon that is confined to the U.S.
Lo and behold, another situation has happened where an organization sold their old computer on eBay…for a bargain at £77 ($141), and it contained a a huge amount of personally identifiable information (PII), including credit card applications, on what is reported to be as many as over 1 million customers. Here are a few excerpts from the report in Forbes…
Where And How Do You Dispose Of Your Cell Phones and Paper Documents?
Monday, June 30th, 2008Something I’m planning to do this summer with my sons is to do some dumpster diving, with the advice of my police and security services company owner friends, to see just how much personal information is left out for just anyone walking by to pick up and use, or misuse. We’ll also see about any cell phones that were just dropped in the dumpster or trash can…
How do you dispose of your cell phones? At work, and at home? And what do you do with the papers that contain personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive information when you throw them away? Are you more diligent at work? Or at home?
With this in mind, here’s another section from the third article in my June issue of “IT Compliance in Realtime“…
Where And How Do You Dispose Of Your Computers, CDs, USB Drives, Etc.?
Sunday, June 29th, 2008In the past few years I’ve performed over 100 information security and privacy program reviews for the vendors and business partners of my clients, and I have often found these contracted organizations have lax to non-existent to outragiously irresponsible computer and electronic storage device disposal practices. One of the “information security” policies for one of the vendors actually directed their personnel to try to sell their old computers and storage devices on e-Bay or other online sites in order to recoup some of the costs…this was in their “Information Disposal Security Policy”! It had absolutely no mention of removing the data before trying to sell the devices; the main intent was to recoup as much of the investment as possible.
With this in mind, here’s another section from the third article in my June issue of “IT Compliance in Realtime“…
Where And How Do You Dispose Of Your Computers, CDs, USB Drives, Etc.?
Sunday, June 29th, 2008In the past few years I’ve performed over 100 information security and privacy program reviews for the vendors and business partners of my clients, and I have often found these contracted organizations have lax to non-existent to outragiously irresponsible computer and electronic storage device disposal practices. One of the “information security” policies for one of the vendors actually directed their personnel to try to sell their old computers and storage devices on e-Bay or other online sites in order to recoup some of the costs…this was in their “Information Disposal Security Policy”! It had absolutely no mention of removing the data before trying to sell the devices; the main intent was to recoup as much of the investment as possible.
With this in mind, here’s another section from the third article in my June issue of “IT Compliance in Realtime“…
Have You Looked In Your Trash Bins Lately?
Monday, February 18th, 2008It shouldn’t still amaze me, but it does, how often so many organizations just dump huge amounts of printed paper containing tons of personally identifiable information (PII) right into their dumpster sitting behind their building, in the alley, or some other easily reachable public location.
Here’s yet another example of a business throwing away people’s privacy in their trash dumpster…
Information Security: Laws Require Secure Disposal of Information in All Forms; Using BS 8470:2006 for Compliance
Friday, April 20th, 2007Many information security incidents have occurred through non-technical means by simply and thoughtlessly throwing away printed documents into publicly-accessible trash bins, or even putting computers and sensitive documents out on the streets. I have blogged about this several times, such as here, here, and here.
Audit Reveals Poor Computer & Data Disposal Practices At Idaho National Laboratory
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007Yesterday Government Computer News reported bad computer disposal methods at the Idaho National Laboratory that leaves confidential and restricted data, including nuclear details, vulnerable.
