Mishaps of Data Found on Hard Drives

'Firms Fail to Destroy Confidential Data' http://msn.vnunet.com/News/1138062

'Companies continue to discard hard drives stuffed with sensitive information, failing to clear them of personal and confidential data including credit card details'

Data cleansing takes precedence http://msn.vnunet.com/News/1134257

It's a moot question and one that can only be explained by the pace of change. You implement one application and, as soon as it's complete, it needs to be integrated into another one, another one and, finally, the web and back again. All this leaves a pile of dirty data, piles of unattended data and piles of data that you simply don't have the time, or indeed the wherewithal, to tackle. It's a sign of the times but one that companies are increasingly keen to put right through monster data cleansing and re-purposing projects that will, they hope, deliver tangible results and benefits…'

'IBM firm sued over stolen hard drive' http://msn.vnunet.com/News/1138659

Class action suit seeks millions in damages for possible identity theft A Canadian computer company may be sued for millions following the theft last month of a hard drive containing information on hundreds of thousands of people. The disk belonged to ISM Canada, a data management company and wholly owned subsidiary of IBM Canada.

Datawiping works (true) http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/25203.html

But what if the broker is not datawiping the kit, or is using the wrong datawiping software? Then there's a headache. The most famous case in recent years was Morgan Grenfell, now part of Deutsche Bank, which let loose an end-of-life PC containing the bank details of Sir Paul McCartney into the secondhand market. But there has been a series of incidents, including details of children at risk found on a PC dumped on a skip by Lincolnshire Council, and a register of sex offenders contained on a PC used by students studying statistics furnished them by Bristol police. The machine was later sold, with the register.

Privacy: Can your PC be subpoenaed? http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-502433.html?legacy=zdnn

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Each day, Ted Reeve pours his life into his home computer. He spends hours reading news online and dutifully records monthly payments for his Visa card and Toyota Camry, along with ATM withdrawals at Ralphs grocery store. He regularly types up notes -- from talks with his doctor, and one day wrote up an offer to his landlady to buy his apartment building from her.
It never occurred to him that such personal data could be extracted and shared among strangers.

'Further data security laws on the way' http://security.ittoolbox.com/news/dispnews.asp?i=105007

Although a US draft bill calling for compulsory annual security audits to be carried out by publicly listed companies has been delayed until early next year, security experts said regulations of this kind are inevitable, both for US and UK firms.
The draft Corporate Information Security Accountability Bill of 2003 calls for publicly listed US firms to adhere to minimum IT security standards, to be set by the Securities and Exchange Commission.