The importance of data security

Everyone may have some sensitive data on their computer. If you are not careful, trouble will follow. Especially for some companies, such as R&D centers, state organs and departments, the data on thousands of computer hard disks is even more so. When these old computers are eliminated, how to ensure the data security on the hard disk?

Ma Jian, the founder of Miao Yi Science and Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Miao Yi Science and Technology"), told reporters: "We usually think it is safe to delete or format the data on the hard disk. In fact, if we meet professionals or people with ulterior motives in data recovery, we can easily recover the data. "

Whose cheese?

The so-called data destruction means that all data must be deleted and unrecoverable before computers or equipment are abandoned, resold or donated to avoid information leakage. This step is especially important for data with confidentiality level and privacy. Because, in the case of formatting or deleting, the old data is not really deleted, but marked with a special identifier in the file system. With the help of professional tools, it is easy to find the directory of files and then restore the original data.

Miao Yi technology mainly realizes three data destruction methods: the first method is software destruction. Its advantage is that the hard disk can be reused after being destroyed, but its disadvantage is that it takes a long time, generally exceeding 1 hour. If the hard disk has a large capacity, such as a hard disk of more than 300G, it takes three hours to destroy, and the sales supervisor needs to keep track of the destruction progress.

The second is to use a degaussing machine. Its advantage is high speed, and it can destroy two hard disks with capacity below 2T in 40 seconds. The disadvantage is that after the data is destroyed, the hard disk can't be used again, and the naked eye can't see the difference before and after the destruction.

The third is physical melting. Put the hard disk into a 70-80 kg melting furnace, and the temperature of the melting furnace can instantly rise to above 1000 degrees Celsius. Compared with the former two, its advantage is absolute safety, but its disadvantage is that it is inconvenient to handle and is not conducive to on-site service; The destruction speed can melt 5- 10 hard disks in 20 minutes. After melting, the hard disk becomes a dough-like soft substance.

"The advantage of physical melting is that the owner can see that the hard disk is completely deformed and feel psychologically practical. Using a degaussing machine, the naked eye can't see the difference before and after degaussing. Degaussing machines are widely used at present, "Ma Jian said. "The French power company has a nuclear power plant project in China, and the data security level on their hard drives is very high. We provide on-site service and use degaussing machine to help the company destroy hard disk data. "

The demand for data destruction first comes from the military field. Until today, the demand for data destruction is still the strongest for military units such as troops. Computers to be eliminated by these institutions often involve state secrets, which are generally allocated by the state and destroyed by the State Secrecy Bureau. Ma Jian said: "Our customers are mainly from foreign companies and listed companies, and small and micro companies do not pay attention to confidentiality."

As early as 2007, Ma Jian began to pay attention to data destruction. Ma Jian told reporters: "I used to work at Dell, and when I was selling computers, I found that customers had this demand. At first, I just helped customers, but later I found that the business volume in this area is relatively large and I need to devote myself to it. So I registered the company in 2009 and organized a team to do data destruction business. "

Market driving force

"We destroyed the data of ChinaHR.com1209 hard disk in June of 20 12, and these data were stored in more than 300 servers." Ma Jian said.

ChinaHR.com's computer hard disk contains a large number of resumes, including the name, contact information, address, work background and other private data of job seekers. If the data is not destroyed, private and sensitive data may be used by others, which will have a negative impact on job seekers. When eliminating computers, it is necessary to destroy data to ensure that a large amount of private information will not fall into the hands of others.

At present, more and more companies are beginning to realize the importance of data security, which mainly comes from three driving forces. The first driving force is ISO2700 1 information security management system certification. Ma Jian said: "Some market research companies, software development companies and medical companies must have ISO2700 1 certification. This standard requires companies to clear data in some way when they eliminate hard drives. "

According to a British statistic, 80% of information loss is related to human factors. Therefore, preventing information risks caused by human factors has become the main control object of information security. From the current certified enterprises, most of them are telecommunications, insurance, banks, data processing centers, integrated circuit manufacturing and software outsourcing.

"If these companies want to be certified, we need to issue a data destruction report to prove that the data has been destroyed. If it is recovered by others, we will bear legal responsibility. " Ma Jian said.

The second driving force is the company's privacy protection policy. With the increase of intellectual property disputes and civil litigation cases caused by data leakage, excellent IT companies will require the destruction of data at the end of the hardware life cycle, giving consumers and users a reasonable explanation.

Ma Jian said: "There are a lot of people selling data now. For example, you have bought a house, bought a car and dealt with an intermediary company. After a week, you will receive 10 spam messages every day. "

A survey shows that in the first half of 20 1 1, mobile phone users in China received 13 spam messages every week on average, accounting for 27.3% of all messages received. In addition to a lot of advertising information, there are quite a few spam messages suspected of violating the law, such as winning fraud, impersonating bank fraud, and illegally reselling bills.

"A lot of information resold by intermediary companies is recovered from the hard disk. At present, more hard disks with 80G capacity are eliminated. From the perspective of hard disk salvage value, it is only worth 50 yuan, but from the perspective of recovering data, it can be sold to 300 yuan in the market. " Ma Jian said.

This is an underground industrial chain. Usually, there is a lot of contact information and other data in the hard disk. Scrap recyclers buy computers eliminated by users at low prices from customers, then hire people to recover the data, and then sort out the contact information from the recovered data and sell it to intermediary companies. Finally, the intermediary company sends all kinds of spam messages containing advertising information to consumers through mobile phone short messages.

Many companies have a privacy statement column at the bottom of their websites, which will write how companies use the privacy data provided by consumers and how to share the privacy data with third-party companies. For example, e-commerce websites usually contain a lot of consumer information, including contact information and bank card number, which are stored on the website server. Ma Jian said: "These servers have reached the retirement period, and it is time to check the implementation of the company's privacy protection policy. Selling the hard disk can get a little residual value return, while destroying the data will reduce the residual value return. You can't have your cake and eat it. Companies that strictly implement privacy protection policies are respectable companies. "

The third driving force is that more and more company executives realize that data destruction is a way to build a company's reputation. "Even if no one tells me what to do, as long as users leave traces of personal privacy, I will consciously delete them, thus maintaining the company's brand and social reputation," Ma Jian said. "For those executives who care about reputation and brand, he will find a professional company to destroy the data."

"reuse" prospect

"Data destruction is the business that we began to pay attention to in 20 12. At present, more than 2,000 pieces, mostly computer hard disks, have been destroyed. Hard disk mobile terminals can also destroy data. Take the mobile phone as an example. Because its storage capacity is not as good as the computer hard disk, it only takes 30 seconds to complete the data destruction. " Ma Jian said.

People are used to putting unused items on shelves, which is actually a waste of resources. If all the goods can be disposed of in time, whether through reuse or recycling, a lot of resources used to produce new products can be saved. If people can deal with idle goods in time, a large number of cheap second-hand goods will circulate and regain a longer life cycle, and the greenhouse gases produced by manufacturing new products will be curbed.

Ma Jian said: "After the data is destroyed, there will be no security risks in the computer. We can buy the computer back, clean it, upgrade it, repair it, and then resell it to SME customers. There are still many migrant workers and low-income people in the cities of Beishangguang. In addition, many college students will choose to buy used computers. "

China Renewable Resources Group accounts for 50% of the domestic recycling market, with an annual turnover of 201/kloc-0 of RMB150 billion yuan. In other words, the total value of China's domestic recycling market is 300 billion yuan. Assuming that in this 300 billion yuan waste recycling market, electronic products only account for 10%, that is, 30 billion yuan, then this is the market capacity of IT equipment asset disposal. Assuming that 65,438+00% companies are aware of data security and need to destroy data, the market size of data destruction is 3 billion yuan. "In the United States and Japan, if the company wants to eliminate 65,438+000 computers, it needs to pay the supplier's home recycling fee. On average, the price of a computer is $20, and the supplier will take it away and dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way. There is no charge for foreign waste computer assets, but the data must be destroyed. " Ma Jian said.

The value of recycling computers lies in the reuse of parts, such as power supply and memory chips. The concept of reuse is also part of the 3R concept. The so-called 3R refers to reuse, reduction and recovery. In Ma Jian's view, recycling should be given priority, because the carbon emissions generated by producing a new product are far greater than those generated by recycling, and it also consumes energy. If it can't be reused, we should also try to reduce carbon emissions.

Ma Jian said, "In my opinion, if computers can be reused, it is better to reuse them. It' s just a helpless move. "