By Euan Henderson
Cyber Security Apprentice
The sanitisation of storage media is important for the security of data within a company.
Disk sanitation may be required for many reasons such as the re-use of the storage media, the repair of the storage media, the disposal and the destruction of media.
If storage media is not sanitised correctly before being sent outside of the organisation, it could have potentially disastrous consequences, from identity fraud of customers to unknown whereabouts of sensitive data.
There are still multiple factors to consider when sanitising your electronic media for example, environmental policies such as WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) and another example is the geographic distance to the disposal company, some companies consider a two-person rule if using a third party, which may reduce risk if the third party has to make stops enroute.
Another point to consider is if data is in the cloud, it is advisable for companies to make sure that the data in the cloud will be adequately protected.
For further information on this subject and what specific advice there is for recycling of data storage devices, go to the link below for NCSC guidance.
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/secure-sanitisation-storage-media
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