The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Did you reset your smartphone or computer? Apparently your personal information still remains - Walla! TECH

2021-02-04T10:01:10.800Z


Did you sell your laptop or smartphone, or did you delete a file and be sure it was deleted forever? So probably not. Kaspersky's study found that 90% of used devices (laptops and smartphones) contained personal information. The alarming figure: 41% of respondents admitted that they would try to use the data


  • TECH

  • news

Did you reset your smartphone or computer?

Apparently your personal information still remains

Did you sell your laptop or smartphone, or did you delete a file and be sure it was deleted forever?

So probably not.

Kaspersky's study found that 90% of used devices (laptops and smartphones) contained personal information.

The alarming figure: 41% of respondents admitted that they would try to use the data

Tags

  • computer

  • privacy

Walla!

TECH

Thursday, 04 February 2021, 11:26

  • Share on Facebook

  • Share on WhatsApp

  • Share on general

  • Share on general

  • Share on Twitter

  • Share on Email

0 comments

Did you sell a computer or a smartphone?

You may have your personal information left in it, even though you have deleted and reset it.

"The vast majority (90%) of second-hand (second-hand) used devices, whether computers or smartphones, hard drives or USB storage devices, contain traces of information from their previous owners," according to a study by cyber-Kaspersky.

These are private photos and videos, pornographic content and intimate messages, personal documents, bank documents, medical reports, contact information, emails from the workplace or personal messages - information that endangers both the previous owners and their workplace.



Kaspersky Research Division (GReAT) first identified the trend as part of an examination of the implications of information security for second-hand devices.

The researchers examined about 200 used media storage devices and found that only 11% of them were completely erased (did not contain information).

Nearly 20% contained data that could be instantly identified and exploited and about 74% of the devices contained information that could be recovered using file recovery or data mining tools.


The information does not endanger only the former owner.

17% of the devices showed a virus alert when first tested by the research team.

That is, the buyer of a smartphone or second-hand computer can receive as a gift not only the private and personal information of the previous owner, but also viruses and malware hidden in the device.

More on Walla!

NEWS

"400% jump in sales": Record demand for Samsung's S21 series

To the full article

Did you reset your smartphone?

Apparently the personal information still remains (Photo: screenshot, screenshot)

The results of the study were consistent with a survey of the company among some 4,000 consumers who purchased desktops and laptops, smartphones and used media storage devices in Europe.

According to the respondents, they found on the devices and devices business information, login details for private accounts, personal content and many other data.

Although the sample in the survey was European, Kaspersky says the results reflect global information security challenges in the used devices market.



For example, out of about 2,000 respondents, 649 bought a used computer, 802 bought a smartphone and 321 bought a used volume.

13% of computer buyers found existing contact details of previous owners, 10% found data related to businesses and organizations and another 10% found official documentation such as passports and driver’s licenses.

Similar rates of findings were found in mobile devices, USB devices and hard drives.

In addition, 13% of the computers also contained documents locked with passwords and login details of the previous owner.



The risk inherent in the presence of old personal data on computers and used devices can be learned from the intentions of the survey respondents and the volume of trade in used devices.

The survey shows that 41% of respondents admitted that they would try to use the data in one way or another, including saving them or revealing embarrassing details about previous users on social networks or exposing the information to family and friends.

One in ten admitted that they would try to sell the personal information, which is known to have no real expiration date and is a risk to previous owners throughout his life.

"Survey shows that 41% of respondents admitted that they would try to use the data in one way or another" (Photo: screenshot, official Android Twitter page)

The volume of trade in used devices also indicates the severity of the risk: about a quarter of the consumers in the survey bought a used laptop and 15% purchased a used laptop for work purposes.

Nearly one-fifth bought a used tablet, and about a third bought a used smartphone.

Trade in used devices is increasing every year around the December holidays and about a quarter of respondents said they received a second-hand device on holidays that contained information from a previous user.



"The experiment we conducted highlighted the importance of deleting confidential data on laptops, tablets or smartphones," said Marco Fraus, head of the GReAT research division in Europe.

"The potential damage from personal data falling into the wrong hands is enormous. It can facilitate identity theft, account access, extortion and even serious social harm to the original owners of the equipment. In addition, data can be used to attack the previous owner of the device as well as close relatives. Friends or colleagues. "

To delete information from your computer, use software that will erase the data thoroughly (Photo: ShutterStock)

How can I completely delete information from used devices?

All information, including contacts, must be backed up on smartphones;

Remove the SIM card or external storage devices such as memory cards (microSD);

Disconnect from all email accounts, apps and social networks connected by phone;

Perform a complete erasure of the personal information on the device (Factory Reset).



On laptops deleting the files and even emptying the recycle bin is not enough.

This only erases the location of the files on the memory and does not delete them completely, so most of them can be recovered using a file recovery tool.

The files must be completely deleted using dedicated software or using an operating system tool called Cipher.

This is a tool that was originally designed to encrypt files but can also erase them from memory or make them unrecoverable.

  • Share on Facebook

  • Share on WhatsApp

  • Share on general

  • Share on general

  • Share on Twitter

  • Share on Email

0 comments

Source: walla

All tech articles on 2021-02-04

You may like

Life/Entertain 2024-02-02T21:20:09.165Z
Business 2024-03-14T11:45:32.265Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.