One in 10 secondhand hard drives contain recoverable personal information
A total of 200 hard drives bought from Internet auction sites and trade fairs were examined, and the results are quite shocking. 11 percent were found to contain personal information belonging to the previous owner, while another 37 percent had what is described as “non-personal” information. Only 38 percent of the drives had been properly wiped, while a further 14 percent were damaged and unreadable.
Of the data recovered, some 34,000 files were found to contain highly sensitive information, including scanned bank statements, passports, birth certificates, employee information, full bank details, family photos, and medical information.
