Earlier this week I read a story on a hard drive bought on eBay for $65 that contained bank account information. I know this is a security topic that has been run into the ground about as much as the importance of strong passwords. But it seems some people and IT professionals don't get the hint. I have seen stories like this since early 2000, people buying old hard drives, for the sole purpose of recovering sensitive and private information.
If you have anything that can be used for storage you need to wipe it clean and then DESTROY IT!. The last thing you want to do with any storage device is to try and sell/give it away. I know some businesses lease equipment so you can't destroy it but you better wipe it and then wipe it again before sending it back.
This counts for iPods, digital camera flash cards, MP3 players, hard drives, thumb drives, whatever else you might use for storage. The reason I say wipe it all is because people seem to have a hard time remembering whether or not they did or didn't have sensitive or private information stored on various devices.
My personal practice is everything is treated like it has Top Secret information on it. I wipe whatever the media is a few times. Usually to DoD or NSA standards then go to my garage to play with some hammers and power tools.
If you don't know what you have stored on that old hard drive or thumb drive over the years, do yourself a favor and wipe it then destroy it. Same for CD-R and DVD-R media which in my case gets shredded.
I would like to know what your process is for discarding old storage media. Please post your experience and tips in the comments.
