Identity Theft Using Second Hand Hard Drives

For most people these days technology is almost a throwaway fact of life; for some however old or no longer necessary technology provides a welcome source of additional income.

There can be no better illustration of this than EBay, the auction website. However there are inherent risks that can lead to problems which can only be solved by the use of expert Computer Forensics techniques.

It is important to understand that simply deleting information from a computer hard drive does not necessarily get rid of it; deleting it simply frees up the space so it can be overwritten with new data.

And just as Computer Forensics Experts can retrieve this data should the need arise so too can the well informed and increasingly sophisticated computer criminal.

One of the most common problems found by Computer Forensics personnel is the problem of hard drives not being properly formatted and wiped clean of all or any previous data. Without proper handling these hard drives, often sold on auction websites for a fraction of their original cost, can be reconstituted thus giving rise to identity theft and thus needing the help of an expert in the fight against Computer Crime.

It is of course not just individuals who sell their equipment on auction websites; companies also sell their unwanted equipment in the hope of making some extra money and without considering the consequences of not ensuring their hard drives are properly cleaned.

The home user wishing to make some extra money, or indeed the business user looking to recoup some money spent on newer equipment, can use disc wiping or erasing utilities which can be purchased from reputable Internet sites or from high street retailers but unfortunately many do not engage in this practice and as a result in recent years thousands of private citizen's details including their dates of birth, PIN (Personal Identification Numbers) and other personal details have been recovered on supposedly clean hard drives.

Computer Forensics Experts are often called upon to help recall lost data and also to prove that data has existed on a particular hard drive at some time.

Unless the hard drive has been removed physically from the computer and replaced with a new one, or the disc has been subject to an erasing utility, the likelihood is the information will be retrievable.

If you are a business and have a large number of computers to dispose of it is wise to take advice from an expert who will be able to help ensure that all personal and sensitive data is removed and non-retrievable before you part company with your computer equipment.

Andrew Frowen is Managing Director of IntaForensics and a registered Computer Forensic Expert. Visit Computer Forensics for further information.

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