The 2006 Analysis of Information Remaining on Disks Offered for Sale on the Second Hand Market

Authors

Andy Jones, Security Research Center, British Telecommunicationsand Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Craig Valli, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Iain Sutherland, University of GlamorganFollow
Paula Thomas, University of Glamorgan

Prior Publisher

The Association of Digital Forensics, Security and Law (ADFSL)

Abstract

All organisations, whether in the public or private sector, use computers for the storage and processing of information relating to their business or services, their employees and their customers. A large proportion of families and individuals in their homes now also use personal computers and, both intentionally and inadvertently, often store on those computers personal information. It is clear that most organisations and individuals continue to be unaware of the information that may be stored on the hard disks that the computers contain, and have not considered what may happen to the information after the disposal of the equipment.

In 2005, joint research was carried out by the University of Glamorgan in Wales and Edith Cowan University in Australia to determine whether second hand computer disks that were purchased from a number of sources still contained any information or whether the information had been effectively erased. The research revealed that, for the majority of the disks that were examined, the information had not been effectively removed and as a result, both organisations and individuals were potentially exposed to a range of potential crimes. It is worthy of note that in the disposal of this equipment, the organisations involved had failed to meet their statutory, regulatory and legal obligations.

This paper describes a second research project that was carried out in 2006 which repeated the research carried out the previous year and also extended the scope of the research to include additional countries. The methodology used was the same as that in the previous year and the disks that were used for the research were again supplied blind by a third party. The research involved the forensic imaging of the disks which was followed by an analysis of the disks to determine what information remained and whether it could be easily recovered using publicly available tools and techniques.

References

BBC News (2005), Data dangers dog hard drive sales, BBC, 12 September 2005. C

anadian Globe and Mail (1993), Disk Slipped Into Wrong Hands, Canadian Globe and Mail, 2nd August 1993.

Cullen D. (2000), Paul McCartney account details leaked on second user PC, The Register, 9th February 2000.

Garfinkel S.L, Shelat A. (2003), Remembrance of Data Passed: A Study of Disk Sanitization Practices. IEEE Security & Privacy, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2003.

Gutmann, P. (1996), Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory, Sixth USENIX Security Symposium Proceedings, San Jose, California, July 22-25, 1996.

Gutmann, P. (2001), Data Remanence in Semiconductor Devices, 10th USENIX Security Symposium, Washington, D.C., August 13-17, 2001.

Jenkins, C. (2005), Govt data sent to auction. The Australian, 2nd August 2005.

Johannes, R. (2006), The Demographics of Identity Fraud: Through education and vigilance, banks can prepare and protect those most vulnerable, Javelin Research, http://www.javelinstrategy.com/uploads/607.R_2006_IDF_Demographics. pdf, Aug 2006.

Jones, A., Mee, V., Meyler, C., and Gooch, J.,(2005), Analysis of Data Recovered From Computer Disks released for sale by organisations, Journal of Information Warfare, (2005) 4 (2), 45-53.

Leyden, J. (2004), Oops! Firm accidentally eBays customer database, The Register, 7 June 2004.

Price Waterhouse Cooper (2006), DTI Information security breaches survey 2006, http://www.dti.gov.uk/industries/information_security Sept 2006.

Synovate, (2003), Federal Trade Commission – Identity Theft Survey Report, Federal Trade Commission, June 2006. TechWeb, (2005), Seven-In-Ten Second-hand Hard Drives Still Have Data, TechWeb News, 31 May 2005.

Valli, C. (2004), Throwing out the Enterprise with the Hard Disk, In 2nd Australian Computer, Information and Network Forensics Conference, We-BCentre.COM, Fremantle Western Australia.

Recommended Citation

Jones, Andy; Valli, Craig; Sutherland, Iain; and Thomas, Paula (2006) "The 2006 Analysis of Information Remaining on Disks Offered for Sale on the Second Hand Market," Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law: Vol. 1 , Article 2.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15394/jdfsl.2006.1008
Available at: https://commons.erau.edu/jdfsl/vol1/iss3/2