{"id":887,"date":"2018-11-13T06:29:40","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T06:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shredeasy.com.au\/?p=887"},"modified":"2018-11-13T06:29:40","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T06:29:40","slug":"just-smash-it-with-a-hammer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calebgittins.com.au\/staging\/shred-easy\/just-smash-it-with-a-hammer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Just smash it with a hammer."},"content":{"rendered":"

Just smash it with a hammer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Someone said this to a friend of mine recently, when she wondered what she should do with her old work phone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you heard of this tactic?<\/span><\/p>\n

So the question is, if you DID smash your old work phones, desktop computers, laptops and tablets with hammers, would the data on them be retrievable from less than savoury types.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the answer is, most likely, yes. People with the right skill-sets would be able to gain access to private personal and business data.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Just do a Factory Reset, right? Nope.<\/h3>\n

The next question is, what about if you did a factory reset? Wiped all of that data clean?<\/span><\/p>\n

According to John Randall, Area Technical Manager for CMIT Solutions in Columbia, \u201898% of good IT professionals can get that data back.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

He now recommends taking all unused electronic equipment to a shredding<\/a> facility, where you can either witness its destruction, or be provided with a Certificate of Destruction<\/a> once the items have been destroyed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018There is no sure way of deleting data from mobile devices except their physical destruction,\u2019 he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

It sounds extreme, doesn\u2019t it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even when you perform a factory reset, the only files that are removed are the files that reference your data –\u00a0 not that actual files themselves. Those files, and their data, stays there until it is overwritten with something else.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What happened with a test of used phones.<\/h2>\n

As a test, Avast Anti-virus software last year bought 20 used Android phones.<\/span><\/p>\n

Each of these phones had undergone a factory reset, or \u2018delete all\u2019 process.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is what Avast was able to recover:<\/span><\/p>\n