Many organizations, including Microsoft, Microsoft, Google, and others, are dumping millions of physical hard drives in their wake, according to a financial Times report. Several interviews with more than 30 people who are in the decommissioning industry are conducted, as well as obtained data from free information requests on the subject.
While many cloud service providers are advocating a transitioning away from an analog present as a partial solution to carbon emissions, industry insiders discuss several options to safely dispose of data and avoid an imminent e-waste catastrophe. Solutions such as secure wiping devices through the use of software selling them over creating additional e-waste after they have destroyed them. Microsoft has gone on record admitting to.
"We have now slashed all [data-bearing devices] to ensure customer data privacy is fully maintained, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.
Security concerns appear to be the last reason most hard drives are marked for loss following their use, and many data center operators are aware of these concerns.
Some data center operators would like to increase the number of hard drives that have a chance at a second life, according to a research vp at Gartner Research.
Morgan Stanley was recently fined $35 million by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for contracting an inexperienced company to decommission its used hard drives. Unfortunately, the decommission company sold the Stanley Morgan hard drives online instead of dumping them, putting millions of the company''s customers data at jeopardy.
While many are concerned about recovered data from reused hard drives, the Financial Times questioned industry experts including CEO and CEO Steve Mellings of the Asset Disposal and Information Security Alliance about the reality of the situation, particularly after software solutions such as Blancco had been applied, "Weve verified that sanitization works and still they shred."
There appears to be no need for cloud service providers to direct address the problem of e-waste, which is caused by hard drives falling.