The next encrypted storage device - the office copier

CBS News recently ran a series of investigative stories on the risks posed by the everyday office copier. A good summary of the investigation can be found here.

What do copiers have to do with storage? Everything.

Since 2002, nearly every office copier has shipped with a hard drive, and nearly every copy made on that copier has been stored on the drive. You name it from financial statements and human resources records, to health insurance claims and loan applications. The hard drive copier is a virtual gold mine for identity thieves. Say the typical office copier is replaced every 5 years, that’s five years of data on anything and everything you can imagine. Typically, decommissioned copiers could be returned off of lease, discarded, or sold on sites like Craig’s list loaded with information you would almost always shred.

What should you do?

1. If you lease the copier, check the contract to ensure that the hard drive will be completely cleaned of all of your data upon return.

2. If you own the copier, remove the hard drive before recycling, or look into how to do a complete cleansing of the drive.

One solution to this potential nightmare is for copiers to use hard drives with self-encrypting technology. Not only is the information on the drive inaccessible without the key, self-encrypting drives from companies like Seagate feature Secure Erase technology that completely cleans the drive of all data in a matter of seconds.

First notebooks, now servers and storage, next…copiers… needs for encrypted storage keep growing.