Data Destruction
Posted By jsklavounos
Date: October 29th, 2008
Category: Backup Strategies
Hi Everyone!
An important part of protecting your data should include a method to actually destroy the data. Imagine this scenario:
You back up your data daily to a tape and rotate the tapes every two weeks, allowing you to have one week’s worth of tapes off-site. So far so good. After a few cycles you retire the tape set and replace it with a new set so you can be sure that you don’t run into the typical mechanical failures associated with tapes. Now you throw out the old tape set and go home to relax.
It seems good to this point, but there is a potentially huge headache for you. We skipped destroying the data before the media was discarded. Your data can now potentially be read (especially if you didn’t encrypt it) by anyone with a tape drive - and don’t convince yourself that nobody wants to see your data. While the information contained in your backups may not be directly usable, resourceful data thieves may be able to use it to get at more financially rewarding (to them) information.
Basically the point is: Destroy your discarded backup data - you never know who will see it!!!
All my best - John
