BCD Electro Announces HDD Wiping Breach Protection Service

BCD Electro, Inc. introduced a digital data destruction system, an in house proprietary disk wiping system conforming to NIST 800-88.

NIST 800-88 data erasure overwrites information while leaving the disk operable, preserving assets and the environment.

Many HDDs have hidden and locked areas that potentially include remapped sectors, which standard multi wipe data wiping freeware and less sophisticated overwriting tools cannot access or erase. The NIST method offers advantages for electronics recyclers and their customers.

The BCD Electro system also includes automated reporting with serialization, and can process large and small quantities of HDDs and provide data breach protection The National Association for Information Destruction (NAID), reported that top executives from 300 firms ranked data security as one of their top critical issues. Environmental concerns are leading them to consider reuse of IT assets they might once have destroyed. Other organizations lease IT equipment.

Both scenarios require methods to securely remove confidential data without physically destroying drives. Recyclers and refurbishers looking to win customers that have data breach concerns, and, are focused on going green, are using NIST approved and certified data erasure to present a safe option for disk sanitization that outperforms many other disk wiping utilities.

Why not just grind ’em up? Reusing an item means that it continues to be a valuable, useful, productive item, and replaces new items that would utilize more water, energy, timber, petroleum, and other limited natural resources in their manufacture. Businesses can save dollars in disposal by reselling or donating items that are no longer needed.

This method of ‘materials exchange’ results in disposal savings by the generating company, and saving in the purchase of the material by the recipient organization. Reuse adds value.

In contrast with many home appliances, life cycle energy use of a computer is dominated by production (83%) as opposed to operation (17%). The yearly life cycle cost of owning a computer is about 3,000 MJ/year, half again that of a refrigerator, a much larger appliance that uses far more electricity in operation. The short lifespan of computers and the variety of computing needs of users suggests that extension of lifespan, for example by reselling to users who need less computing power, is a promising approach to mitigating environmental impacts," said Williams, E.D., United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan.

Studies indicate that the life energy use of a computer is mostly manufacturing (81%). Operation is 19%. Extending a HDDs usable life by data wiping and reuse is a valid approach to reducing energy consumption associated with manufacturing and destruction.

Companies that rely on their electronics recycler for data breach protection must insist on auditable data breach protection.

The cost for data erasure is minimal, data breaches cost companies $5 million on average, the real costs are damage to corporate reputation and regulatory non-compliance.