DRM (Digital Risk Management) is well known in the world of information security. It refers to a corporate or organizational strategy of how to minimize risk and liability by protecting a company’s or agency’s sensitive information. The DRO (Digital Risk Officer), the person who is responsible to manage and control the issue.
Most companies are implementing all kinds of cybersecurity measures to protect their sensitive data. Encryption software, firewalls and a variety of monitoring programs are deployed to stop, control, and monitor data as it flies around cyberspace. However, one place that is often overlooked as part of a good DRM is data that resides on end-of life media.
CSOs, CISOs and/or IT departments should have a plan in place on how to effectively eliminate data on end-of-life media. The emphasis is on the word “effectively”. While there are many software programs that erase data on storage media like hard drives, solid state devices, data tapes, etc., there are an equal number of software programs capable of recapturing the “erased” data. As such, the most “effective” way of mitigating the risk would be through the physical destruction of the media.
Be proactive – don’t wait for a breach!
As someone who has provided solutions to companies who had to scramble after an information breach, would it not be wiser to address this potentially catastrophic issue in an up-front proactive manner? Here’s an example:
Your data center is equipped with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hardware and software. Every day, rotational magnetic hard drives, solid state drives and devices (SSDs, thumb drives, etc.), data tapes, etc. all holding sensitive data fail or it’s time to upgrade to a faster device. You pull them out and stick them in a corner. Just because they are no longer operational or that you ran a software erase program, you believe the data is safe. However, someone with the right equipment or software can (relatively easily!) retrieve data off these devices.
What to do?
If you incorporated a media destruction program as part of your overall DRM strategy and had the equipment at-site to control the process, you could implement a program that could “effectively” reduce the risk to virtually ZERO.
At SEM, that’s what we do. We offer destruction solutions to effectively eliminate data found on virtually all forms of media, and we have numerous major data center clients who trust their high security data centers ONLY to SEM devices.
For more information on any of our Made in USA products or a customized SEM solution, reach out to one of our friendly staff via chat, email, phone, or web inquiry. We are readying waiting to mitigate your risk!