data security.

The amount of data that is stored electronically has been exploding. Today more than ever, all data should be stored securely. Ideally, we should encrypt all data stored on our system. Encryption takes the data and makes it inaccessible to anyone without the unique decryption key.

However, this can not completely protect us from data breaches due to human error. A good example of data breaches due to human error are old drives that haven’t been properly erased. A recent data security study showed that over 60% of the second-hand hard drives randomly purchased online contained personal data such as name, address, date of birth, photos and financial information of the original owner. Furthermore, over 10% of hard drives that previously belonged to businesses contained financial data, emails and customers' data.

This clearly implies that dragging files to the Recycle Bin does not erase data. To sanitize a disk for reuse, resale, or disposal by securely erasing the data, a disk wiping process should be performed. Disk wiping is a non-destructive way of permanently removing data and preventing the recovery of that data. If the data is highly sensitive then the best option is to physically destroy the drive.