Report: 42% of Used Drives Sold on eBay Hold Sensitive Data

guest · Apr 25, 2019

Report: 42% of Used Drives Sold on eBay Hold Sensitive Data
April 25, 2019
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/used-drives-sold-sensitive-data-1-1/

A new report from Blancco Technology Group has warned that those looking to make some money by selling used storage drives may be putting themselves at risk of falling victim to cybercrime.

As detailed in Privacy for Sale: Data Security Risks in the Second-Hand IT Asset Marketplace, Blancco, in conjunction with Ontrack, analyzed 159 leading brand drives purchased through auction site eBay in the US, UK, Germany and Finland, discovering that almost half (42%) still held sensitive data.

“Selling old hardware via an online marketplace might feel like a good option, but in reality, it creates a serious risk of exposing dangerous levels of personal data,” said Fredrik Forslund, VP, cloud and data erasure, Blancco.
“Destruction of the device really doesn’t make the data go away either; sure parts of it might be damaged or hard to read because the media can't be plugged in easily. The data, however, persists.
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guest · Sep 24, 2019

Study: 3 in 5 secondhand hard drives still contain previous owner’s data
A new study shows most secondhand hard drives often contain private and sensitive information from their previous owners
September 24, 2019
https://www.comparitech.com/blog/information-security/hard-drives-contain-previous-owners-data/

59 percent of secondhand hard disks sold on marketplaces like eBay are not properly wiped and still contain data from their previous owners, according to a new study by the University of Hertfordshire and commissioned by Comparitech.

We purchased 200 used hard drives from online marketplaces, secondhand shops, and conventional auctions: 100 in the USA and 100 in the UK. University researchers then performed forensic analysis to determine whether any attempt had been made at deleting the contents of the drive and whether those attempts were successful.
We uncovered a wide range of sensitive and private information left by previous owners.

The information stored on the drives could be used by criminals for any number of purposes ranging from blackmail to identity theft.
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Here’s a breakdown of the 200 hard drives analyzed:

26% were properly wiped and no remnant data could be recovered

26% had been formatted, but data could still be recovered with minimal effort

17% contained deleted data that could easily be recovered

16% of the hard disks appeared to have no attempt made to remove the data

16% were not accessible and could not be read

As we’ve found in previous studies, the problem is not that disks aren’t being wiped before resale, but that they aren’t being wiped properly.
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Report: 42% of Used Drives Sold on eBay Hold Sensitive Data

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