Cloud Data Security Does ‘delete’ Really Erase Your Data?

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Cloud Data Security – Does ‘Delete’ Really Erase Your Data?

by

Nick J Davies

How many times have you found yourself thinking that the file you just deleted has actually been erased from your computer, or your flash drive? I’m sure we all do it all the time. At some point in time, we will try to make life easier or be more efficient by using shortcuts, so we hit the Shift+Del button (if we are on a Microsoft/Windows based computer) – thinking that the file we just deleted will skip the Trash buffer.

At the same time, we’re also pretty quick to scrawl the internet for a recovery – un-delete or un-erase – program, for instance if the photos on our digital camera have been erased when we haven’t yet made copies of them. If we are tech-savvy, we try doing it ourselves, otherwise, we head over to the techy person that we know and ask them to perform a miracle to recover our files. More often than not, you will be surprised at they results and they will manage to recover your files (especially if you haven’t yet put other files on that same disk).

If you are like me, then you’ll also love those movies and series where a forensics team are trying desperately to get a copy of that precious but yet broken hard disk, so that they try recovering the files from it – and miraculously, they recover the compromising files that help solve the case. Ok, I know, this may seem a bit Sci-Fi a scenario, but it s probably easier than you might imagine. In fact, a recent BBC article reveals to us some very interesting and surprising numbers:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPDXmVR0Knk[/youtube]

One-in-10 second-hand hard drives still contain the original user’s personal information, suggests an investigation by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

That’s just scary. Imagine that last hard drive or computer that you’ve sold on eBay, thinking that you’ve already erased your personal files, but just imagine the person who bought it playing around with it trying to recover some juicy information.

I have to admit that the entity commissioned by the ICO mentioned in that BBC article will be using very specific programs and infrastructures for recovering data, but even so, one cannot ignore the fact that there’s a lot of recovery or un-eraser programs out there published on the internet that do the same thing: recover unintentionally deleted files from your digital camera, or regenerate a hard disk And the list goes on. As long as someone pays for those programs, they have the tools to recover data from your deleted data storage device.

So what does it have to do with cloud computing? After all, the title does suggest that cloud computing does play a part in all this. Well, because one of the arguments against cloud computing is the perception that it does not provide the required level of privacy to the user’s data. I said perception since growth in technology and professional cloud providers with proven advanced security protection are on the rise – there’s a strong base of protection of user’s data that comes along with cloud-based solutions. But yet, the perception still remains that data is not secure in the cloud.

For once, I’ll leave this article with an open-end: each reader can make his or her own appreciation of the situation. As for myself, I’ll just leave you with this thought; that your personal data is at no more risk that if you in a hosted environment than it is say, on your computer or on your own infrastructure because a virus can attack anywhere and you’ll only have yourself to blame if the security breach is detected at your side (for example, you host your data on your own infrastructure), while a cloud computing provider is contractually bound to keeping your data safe and secure.

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Cloud Data Security – Does ‘Delete’ Really Erase Your Data?

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