Info Security

Protect your thumb drive and the data on it like it is made of solid gold and diamonds

A few days ago, over lunch, I ran to a gas station, grabbed a diet Dew and headed to the car. On the way back, I found a flash drive laying on the ground. It was laying in an empty parking space and there were no other vehicles or customers around so I grabbed it. Thought, hey, my lucky day.

It sat in my car while I finished my day at work and the whole day was wondering if this was someones attempt at a ‘social engineering’ attack or just someone that lost their drive. I won’t compromise my organizations network in any way shape or form, so it had to wait.

I know what kind of data is stored on a lot of drives and it ranges from purely innocent filled with someone’s kids photos right on up to deviant sexual and criminal acts. So all the while I was chomping at the bit to see what was on it. If it was something of the more seedy nature, I’d keep the drive, and wipe it for future personal use. If it was of a criminal nature, I’d hand it over to the proper authorities. If it was something else, I’d see if I could track the owner down.

I started to look through the drive and what was MOST disturbing is that there were several files on there with financials for both the person (who happens to own a computer support business) as well as an organizations financials. This really alarmed me and I started to wonder what would have happened if someone else of the ‘less than ethical nature’ would have picked this up.

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My Dixie Chicks CD

The following article will show you how to install a portable Data Shredder/Destroyer/Eraser on a thumb drive that will permanently delete any file you choose on any computer to DOD and higher standards.

For those of you that don’t know; when you delete something on your computer it is not actually deleted, your computer basically just stops showing the file. It is still there, you just can’t see it.

An example would be when you erase a drawing or words on a chalkboard you can still see a shadow of what you wrote. What a data Shredder/Destroyer does is take a power grinder over your erased chalkboard.

One of the guys here at DV Mag (James G) has quite a bit of Computer Forensics experience and he can tell you with 100% certainty if you do not use a data shredder even a poorly trained tech ops guy can retrieve anything that you thought was deleted.

To permanently delete a file or data you must use a program to rewrite over the data several times. Even better is to have one that you can carry with you and use on any computer.

Click Here For Step By Step Instructions on How To Install and Use a Free Data Shredder on Your Thumb Drive and Home Computer

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