Surplus Computers and Data Leaks
Stories of stolen company or government laptops with confidential information on them are almost routine now. A slight twist on that story line comes out of Kansas were several state computers put up for auction contained employee personal information, Social Security numbers, and investigation details.
The discovery was made by auditors and the Topkea Capital Journal quoted Rep. Virgil Peck as saying
"After reading through this report, I had to take a couple nitroglycerin tablets and go lay down,"
Liability is the first term that comes to mind; Boot and Nuke is the second. Boot and Nuke is a free program that can be used to overwrite data on drives. The project Web site describes the program:
DBAN is a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer, and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows installation of viruses and spyware. DBAN prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis.
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