Nearly Half of Confidential Data stays on the PC when the PC leaves

University of Glamorgan research has revealed that organisations are failing to follow security measures to erase confidential information from computers before machines are disposed of.

The research, led by Andy Blyth of the Information Security Research Group at the university, concentrated upon 92 used disks acquired from eBay and computer fairs. These were analysed by researchers with no prior knowledge of where the disks had been purchased or what was on each disk.

A control group of drives was also sourced from a company that specialises in data destruction – all had been wiped and were found to be clean.

The findings from the 92 disks enabled researchers to identify organisations, individuals, personal information, identifiable usernames, databases and even national insurance numbers. Financial accounts were also uncovered, with 20% of the disks containing financial information relating to organisation, that included sales receipts and profit and loss reports.

Some organisations had attempted data removal but, nonetheless, 47% of the disks contained information that could identify an individual or organisation. Blyth says: 'The research project was concerned with measuring the level at which personal and commercial data is being made available on the used computer market. In particular, the project wanted to examine the extent to which commercial data was available via computer hard disks on sites such as eBay. We are used to this kind of work as we have functioned as expert witnesses for both regional and national high tech crime units; however, the results were still surprising.

'Companies have an obligation to dispose of data when it is no longer required and many of the organisations involved are now launching investigations in to how this information has ended up in the public domain.'

The findings beg the question of how an easy data removal system can be introduced for PCs, which doesn't make the computer vulnerable to wiping out at other times.

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