Kamis, 13 November 2008

Disposing of Your USB Flash Drives

After using your USB Flash Drive for a couple of years you'll probably find it dated old looking and of poor spec compared to something else you could buy for half the price. Not surprisingly you'll probably trade it in for a newer USB Flash Drive with more data capacity. However before throwing your flash drive away, it is important that you erase any sensitive data held on the USB Flash Drive in case it gets into the wrong hands. Giving out your own personal data could lead to somebody committing fraud against you; losing somebody else's could lead to a criminal conviction.

USB Flash Drives are seen as a security threat by many businesses and government agencies; this concern is not unjustified as there have been a number of security breaches as a consequence of their misuse. US Military USD Flash Drives were found be sold in markets in Afghanistan, some of these Flash Drives contained names of suspects and the personal details of over 600 troops. This information could have been used for all sorts of purposes if it had got into the wrong hands, and was caused, one would hope, by ignorance of the soldiers who disposed of them.

To prevent such leaks organisations should have policies set for the disposal of memory products such as hard drives and USB Flash Drives. One commonly used option is file shredding, which deletes the chosen files and folders and then writes over them in random patterns, the more this is done the harder it is to recover the information from the disk.

Chris Proth is an avid commentator on promotional technology for USB Flash Drives Chris Proth recommends Flashbay Ltd.

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