STOP! Don't take a hammer to your hard drive

Charitable PC recycler Computer Aid International has responded to a report last week which claimed a high percentage of discarded hard drives contain sensitive information and is imploring users not to use a hammer to solve the problem.

Two US techies, Simson Garfinkel and Abhi Shelat, obtained second-hand disks containing all manner of files left over from their previous owners - including pornography and more than 5,000 credit card numbers.

One discarded hard drive contained 12 months worth of cashpoint transactions, including bank account numbers.

In total, the pair found that 81 per cent of second-hand hard disks, obtained from shops and online auction sites, still worked perfectly, while 54 per cent of those still contained recoverable files and 37 per cent held important company information.

However, Jaf Shah, fundraising manager at Computer Aid International, refutes the findings, claiming companies his organisation deals with are more than aware of the need to 'sanitise' hard drives before selling off or giving away old office computers.

Shah also urged companies to consider recycling their machines, rather than destroying them - alluding to the tried and tested method of using a hammer to 'sanitise' a hard disk.

Shah told silicon.com: "We find that most of the UK companies we deal with are well aware of the security risks involved in disposing of PCs. Fortunately there is specialist software that thoroughly cleans and data wipes hard disks. We rely on this technology to secure donations from organisations that might otherwise use the other data destruction solution - a hammer.

Computer Aid International refurbishes Pentium PCs donated by UK businesses for use in schools and community groups in developing countries where the cost of PCs is prohibitive for the vast majority of people. The organisation has just recycled its 15,000th PC.

For more information on computer recycling, see: www.computeraid.org