Product category:
Process Control System security
News Release from: M D J Light Brothers | Subject: TV fraud documentary
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 04 April 2008
Light brothers star in BBC TV fraud
documentary
Aylesford, Kent-based PC recycling specialist MDJ Light Brothers had a starring role in a prime-time BBC TV documentary last night, discussing the identity theft dangers from discarded PCs
The documentary - ID Fraud: Outnumbered - focuses on the dangers of electronic and other forms of identity fraud, described as the 21st century's fastest growing form of crime The Steadfast Productions team included a police specialist in computer fraud as well as forensic computing experts from international defence and technology security company Qinetiq
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 10 Apr 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Narrated by Jamie Theakston, the documentary examines the rise in identity theft, the dangers of electronically-stored data, and what can be done to combat it.
Electronic data theft and related fraud could well increase as the WEEE Directive requires that electronic and electrical equipment such as PCs can no longer be sent to landfill as waste.
They have to be processed for re-use, often through the second-hand resale market, or for recycling by being 'de-manufactured'.
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The experts found retrievable data on the hard disks of junked PCs selected randomly from the hundreds that arrive at Light Brothers facility each day for refurbishment or recycling.
This data included personal, banking, financial and business information that a fraudster could use to create a fake identity for on-line fraud.
Light Brothers co-operated fully with the film crew because the issue of data theft needs constant publicity - but national recycling manager Phil Burgon emphasised that the special access given to the experts was 'a one off' and does not 'remotely reflect the processing security safeguards followed by Light Brothers'.
He added: "Our advice to computer users, whether consumer or business-related, is simple.
You should make every effort to clean data from your computers, using affordable and available software to do this.
If you don't, there is a very real risk that you're leaving an electronic door partially open to sensitive data.
Alternatively, you should ask the recycling provider what they do about data removal.
Light Brothers is one of the very few licensed technology processors to offer data cleaning as part of its service".
Guaranteed Data Cleaning Light Brothers technology processing service guarantees that any computing equipment arriving for refurbishment or recycling will not have any useable data left on hard drives after they have been processed.
PCs refurbished for resale have their disks fully over-written, known as zero fill, so that no old data is visible or accessible, while PCs earmarked for recycling have their hard drives physically drilled through prior to being granulated into hundreds of fragments.
A premium-level data cleaning service is also available for businesses and organisations wanting a 110% guarantee that discarded computer disks are clean of stored data.
Specialist software removes hard disk data in accordance with information destruction standards set by the US Department of Defence.
The BBC TV documentary was shown on BBC1, at 9pm on Thursday 3rd April.
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