Category Archives: Data Protection

“The Security of the Cloud …”

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iCloud security wake-up call

 

As a result from the security issues surrounding iCloud, “The general move to cloud services is going to suffer..” “In the wake of a leak at the start of the month, Apple added new security measures to its iCloud service. Apple was late to the game with two-factor authentication, but most of these (celebrity) images were likely hacked before it brought in that update”, Conor Flynn stated to the Sunday Business Post. “These leaks should act as a wake-up call to Irish smart-phone users to keep account of where their data is being stored, according to Michael Conway – director of Renaissance”.

If the public was better educated about the methods and locations for storage of their data, it would minimise the risk to the user. “People share information so-freely in social media circles, the logical step is just saving that information in the cloud”.

According to the Sunday Business Post, the simple solution is to encrypt your files before saving to a cloud service because even if that cloud provider is compromised, your files are useless to anyone who gets them without the encryption key.

IRISH COMPANIES ARE SUFFERING FROM DATA BREACHES

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irish data breaches

“IRISH companies are suffering data breaches in record numbers, according to a major new survey from The Irish Computer Society.”

Firstly the definition of a data breach according to wikipeadia – “A data breach is a security incident in which sensitive, protected or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an individual unauthorized to do so.”

It has being discovered that “four-fifths of all Irish data breaches come from firms employees”.

The survey, conducted among IT administrators in 256 Irish-based companies, reveals that more than half of Irish firms have experienced a data breach in the last 12 months, with 22pc suffering multiple breaches.

To read more about the above information, click here.

For useful information about how to protect your data, click here.

For further advice or assistance you can contact us.

 

 

New Data Protection Commissioner

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new data protection commissioner
We welcome Ms. Helen Dixon in to the Data Protection Sector and wish her success in her important new role. Ms. Dixon is taking over from Mr. Billy Hawkes whom has retired from his position as privacy chief since 2005.
Ms. Dixon has served an 11 year career in two US IT multinationals – Worth Data Inc and Citrix Systems – that had their EMEA bases in Ireland.
“The role of the office of the Data Protection Commissioner as an independent body which has responsibility for safeguarding data in Ireland is of critical importance.”
In a statement, a Government spokesman said Ms Dixon brings “a wealth of experience and expertise to her new role, both in the public and private sectors”.
We would like to wish Ms. Helen Dixon all the best in her new role and hope she has a successful career.
We would also like to wish Mr. Billy Hawkes well with his future endeavours.

Credit Unions private investigators allegedly steal Data from Department of Social Protection.

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social welfare "data stolen" from credit union private investigators

Just last week the newspapers covered the alleged story regarding private investigators being hired by the Credit Unions’ to retrieve confidential data from the Department of Social Protection.
It was brought to the attention of the Data Protection Commissioner that the Credit Union hired investigators to track down loan defaulters. It is suspected that the investigators duped the Department of Social Protection into disclosing confidential information such as PPS numbers, employment details and living arrangements. As a result this scheme is in breach of Section 22 of the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003. As a result of investigations, The Data Protection Commissioner has initiated prosecution proceedings against some private investigators who are suspected of breaches of the Data Protection Acts.

social welfare investigates data breach
The Department of Social Protection has responded by saying the following:
“[The Department] treats its responsibilities in terms of protecting the data of its clients with the utmost seriousness,” it said.
“Any case where there is a suspected breach of data security is investigated and where it is established that a breach has occurred, the personnel officer establishes an investigation under the disciplinary code which provides for sanctions up to and including dismissal.”
For more information about this story click here.

With regard to our own information it is extremely important that everyone is vigilant regarding who they are disclosing information to. For example, a “Representative” from a maintenance company contacts someone to tell them that the computer has multiple viruses on it and its going to stop working any minute. The representative acquires that persons bank details to so-call remove the viruses when in fact he/she is down-sizing that person’s bank account!
At the end of the day, everyone has to be extremely careful when disclosing information to anyone over the phone.

Security in Shredding Donate to Another Great Cause

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Away from Data Protection and Secure Data Destruction (Paper Shredding, Media Shredding and Secure WEEE Recycling); The Security in Shredding Team took the hands on approach with The amazing charity “One in Four”.

In March of 2014 Security in Shredding teamed up and got involved in a charity sponsored horse riding event to aid of fund raising for The One in Four Charity. Not only did the Company donate for the great cause but the brave staff entered themselves and their horses in the event for the day.
photo 4 Front:     Presenting the donation to the Charity; Senior Management at Security in Shredding & Maeve Lewis (One in Four Executive Director)

Back:      Staff of Security in Shredding entered into the event.

Continue reading →

Free Shred and Information Event in aid of Data Protection Day a true success.

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shreddayimage

It is advantageous for the General Public and Organisations within Ireland and across the Globe to be aware that January 28th is European Data Protection Day, and it is known as “Privacy Day” outside of the EU. Continue reading →

Data Protection Day Information Leaflet

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Today is data protection day and we felt this was a great opportunity to provide our readers with a free information leaflet to raise awareness on data protection. Continue reading →

Business Environment – What can be Recycled?

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recycling for business & paper shredding service

A secure document shredding service in the Limerick, Galway and Cork areas will provide you with the data security needed for document shredding. While also providing a recycling service for your business thus helping the environment.

Firstly, within a business it makes definite sense to recycle as reducing waste makes business sense. As all businesses run under the simple formula that is to maximise income and reduce costs, is necessity for business survival a clear achievable waste reduction and recycling plan performs as an aid to businesses in reaching their goals
and objectives effectively.

An organisation can save up to and above 25% on waste management costs with an effective waste reduction and recycling plans in operation. It is estimated that waste production can cost your business up to 4% of turnover and in some companies it can reach as high as 10%.


How Waste Reduction & Recycling Plans Benefit Businesses:

  1. Recycling services reduce net operating costs as recycling is a less expensive process than that of waste disposal.
  1. Waste reduction and recycling is a straight forward and simple task for an organisation to conduct once they have the right information and expertise helping them through. It takes a short period of time for an organisation to implement a waste reduction and recycling plan while the beneficial monetary savings will continue long into the future.
  1. Both customer and communities are aware when Organisations are environmentally friendly which in turn has a knock on effect relating to the company image and potential client perception of the organisation.
  1. The purchasing of re-manufactured goods and those manufactured with recycled content can save money and improve overall efficiency within an organisation.
  1. Through compliance schemes and compliant documentation companies can achieve awards in relation to their environmentally friendly practices which is an additional positive aspect to recycling for an organisation
  1. An organisation that is recycling ethically has the opportunity to benefit from making new business partners within various industries that have the common stance that recycling is an imperative aspect of their daily business.

 

Within the waste material produced by an organisation there are certain items that should be segregated from the main General Waste, Mixed Recycling Waste and Green Waste.
Segregated items would include Bulky Items and Hazardous Items.

Bulky Items Hazardous Items
Furniture Hazardous Chemicals
Mattresses Paint
Rock, Dirt, Concrete Used Oil
Appliances Propane Tanks
Tires Batteries

tyre-recycling
Once the items above are segregated the remaining waste is suitable for mixed recycling collections and general waste collections.
The list of materials an Organisation can recycle, re-use and/or purchase as re manufactured is vast and I have noted clearly below a list comprising of material that would be of benefit to an organisation when implementing efficient and effective recycling plans.

  • Aluminium foil and cans
  • Corrugated Cardboard Boxes
  • Class Containers, Bottles and Jars
  • Metal cans
  • Mixed paper, including magazines and junk mail
  • Newspapers
  • Paperboard Both White and Coloured
  • Hard plastics and Plastic Containers
  • Autos
  • Fluorescent Tubes
  • Metals
  • Plastic Bags
  • Tires

Organisations and businesses requiring information about the recycling can find out more by visiting https://www.repak.ie.

For more information on a paper shredding service in Limerick, Cork, Galway and Dublin areas please our site for more information.

Site: https://www.securityinshredding.com/

Why You Should Physically Destroy Hard-Drives

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high quality secure paper shredding service

When it comes to data stored on your office computer it is difficult to pin point when the data is deleted from the system. Simply deleting files doesn’t truly remove the data from the hardware.

The file information is kept in a directory in order for the operating system not being able to locate it. When a file is deleted, all you are doing is removing it from the directory and flagging that part of the drive as being available for new data.

Until that region of the drive is overwritten the old deleted data can be retrieved using data retrieval software & hardware.

Degaussing is the most common method of data removal from hard-drives for Organisations. Degaussing is the removal of unwanted magnetism from a magnetic field. As a hard-drive operates by spinning magnetised platters thousands of times per minute and reading the information from them with heads within the drive, a degausser is utilised in order to disrupt/demagnetise the magnetic platter making it unreadable for these heads within the drive.

Security in Shredding Confidential Paper Shredding

Degaussed hard drives need to be tagged as “processed” because a degaussed hard drive looks exactly the same as a non-degaussed hard drive. There is no simple or inexpensive way to test the efficacy of the degaussing process other than regularly testing the degausser’s magnetic output and trusting the physics of magnetics.

Disadvantages of Degaussing:

  • Can only be used on magnetic media
  • Degaussing does not provide reporting of the erasure process which is needed to prove regulatory compliance
  • There is no method of guaranteeing that a particular degaussing machine is strong enough to destroy all the data on every hard-drive.
  • Deguassing does not guarantee full data destruction for a hard-drive
  • Other components of the drive are damaged making it difficult to verify the erasure process
  • Degaussing equipment is highly expensive and they sre extremely dangerous to utilise in the area of other electronic devices
  • Modern hard-droves use thicker shielding and require a much stronger electromagnetic field in order to destroy all the data
  • In order to utilise a degaussing machine significant training is required in order for an organisation to maximise security and minimise risk of unsuccessful hard-drive degaussing

With all of the points in relation to degaussing stated above now we can look at shredding. It is brief, there are no risks involved during a professional hard-drive shredding process as the data is 100% guaranteed to be destructed and unrecoverable.

harddrive destruction, Media Destruction, Confidential Shredding Service

Advantages of Shredding Hard-Drives:

  • Eliminate the need for storing obsolete data storage hardware in boxes, pallets, offices etc.
  • 100% eliminates the possibility of data breaches in relation to electronic data storage devices It is a cost effective method of electronic data destruction
  • Hard-drives are unusable post shredding process eliminating any risk of data breaches
  • Maintain the highest level of compliance with Legislation in relation to data protection and secure destruction.
  • Environmentally friendly method of data destruction as plastic and metals are recycled from the shredding process

Post researching the area it is clear to see that when it comes to Hard Drive Shredding Vs Hard Drive Degassing the shredding option is a more cost effective and secure method of electronic data destruction. In my next post I will discuss the additional method of electronic data destruction which is Data Wiping and in turn discuss the disadvantages and advantages for an organisation.

For more information email us at: info@securityinshredding.com

Why Media Destruction Of Digital Devices Is Necessary

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confidential electronic-destruction

At Security In Shredding paper shredding services provide excellent data security. Digital and electronic devices should be treated with the same manner regarding data security. Again a sure fire method of this is physically destroying these devices once they are no longer needed.

Digital Data & Devices

Electronic Data and Electronic Devices have grown rapidly within the Business Environment which in turn has resulted in new data protection regulations being implemented and continuous security measures being improved within organisations. Due to the required high volume of Technology being utilised within Business today in addition to the level of data being gathered there has been true improvements achieved however, there are also serious problems.

At the top of this list is the significant topic of appropriately disposing & recycling the obsolete and end of life devices while protecting the personal data within the given device as organisations are obligated to do through Data Protection Legislation.

So how can an organisation be certain that their data is protected as they dispose of their devices and media that they no longer need or are no longer required to be retained for compliance purposes?

By sourcing experienced professional data (Paper, Media, and Textiles etc.) destruction companies to destruct electronic media an organisation receives many significant benefits.

Benefits such as:

  • Organisations ensure compliance with The European Data Protection Directive
  • Peace of mind that all data within the organisations electronic media is destroyed and non-recoverable.
  • Mitigates the risk of unauthorised use of the organisations sensitive information stored on electronic media.
  • The security of receiving audit ready fully traceable documentation and certification
  • Overall improved efficiency by outsourcing the destruction service to a professional company. Many organisations attempt to conduct the destruction of sensitive material in-house. This has proven in historic circumstances to be time consuming, unsecured, unreliable, untraceable and troublesome for many organisations.
  • Reduced risk of inadvertent disclosure through top level security and experienced safeguards throughout the shredding process whether it is onsite or offsite.

In addition to hard-drive and media storage devices it is essential for clients to be fully aware of the true detrimental risks attached to IT Assets and the disposal/Recycling of them. Today many electronic devices store data within an organisation.

Devices within offices such as:

  • Computer Hard-drives
  • Laptop Hard-drives
  • Printers and Scanners with internal hard-drives
  • Mobile Phones
  • Fax machines
  • Mobiles Phones
  • Servers
  • Other IT assets & office equipment

These all possess a serious risk to an organisation during the disposal/recycling process. With this in mind professional data destruction companies such as Security in Shredding provide IT Asset Disposition services to help organisations to destroy and recycle IT equipment through reliable, experienced, environmentally friendly and best practised methods and services.

For more information on our media destruction service, please visit our page and contact a member of our team if you have any enquiries.

Email us at: info@securityinshredding.com