Retiring Your IT Leftovers
Recent security research has made a discovery that could potentially wreak havoc on million of phones.
Apparently, there are quite a few mobile phones either on the market or tossed away that still have SIM cards with 1970s Data Encryption Standard (DES) security. Oh, and by “quite a few” I mean the number could reach into the hundreds of millions!
These outdated, DES-encrypted SIM cards allow hackers to access not only personal identities but any payment information stored on the card with little to no effort.
By testing 1,000 SIM cards over two years, a research lab found that an astounding 25% still used DES instead of the more advanced security approach.
While phones in the U.S. that still use a DES-encrypted SIM would be about 10-year-old models and are probably laying in some landfill right now, this does not mean personal and financial data is safe. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” still applies to hackers looking for any information they can get their hands on.
IT asset disposition (ITAD) organizations give peace of mind when it comes to proper data handling and destruction. As an R2/RIOS certified ITAD company, HOBI International professionals stay current with the latest technology. Realizing mobility is the wave of the future, our mobile asset disposition process was created years before the current line of mobile data security thinking. We are MAD pioneers.
It is important to realize the immense amount of data stored on our mobile phones today. Harboring more storage than many laptops and PCs, our mobile phones hold everything from financial accounts to personal information that could lead to identity theft.
To ensure your information doesn’t wind up the wrong hands, contact a certified ITAD provider for proper data destruction.
Related posts
