An easy way for identity thieves to make a living . . .

Kessler International, a New York computer forensics firm conducted a six month study on the availability of information left on computers being resold. The company bought a total of 100 disk drives of various sizes from eBay and what they found was alarming – over 40 of the hard drives had retrievable information on them!
The breakdown of information is as follows:
Personal and Confidential documents, including financial information 36%
Emails 21%
Photos 13%
Corporate Documents 11%
Web Browsing History 11%
DNS Server Information 4%
Miscellaneous Data 4%

Many companies have recycled their old computers and hardware, without thinking about the repercussions of identity theft. They have no system in place that documents the destruction of the information. During tough economic times this becomes an even greater risk both to the company and the contacts of the user of each individual computer. Buying a used computer has now becomes one of the easy ways for identity thieves to make a living.