News in the Channel - issue #30

DATA DESTRUCTION

More data than ever is being produced, but, with cyberthreats similarly growing, disposing of this data securely is crucial if businesses are to avoid potential breaches – and resellers have an important role to play.

As technology advances, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence, the amount of data being produced continues to rise markedly. By 2028, Statista predicts that there will be 394 zettabytes of data consumed, up from 149 zettabytes in 2024. Given that a zettabyte is equal to 1 trillion gigabytes, that is a huge number. But data often has a shelf life for businesses, and when it is no longer useful it needs to be disposed of. But with cyberthreats continuing to increase, care must be taken to ensure it is done with no chance of it being recovered. “Data privacy laws, including GDPR, require organisations to properly handle and permanently erase personal and sensitive information when it’s no longer needed or upon request,” says Ross Brewer, VP and managing director of Graylog. “Simply deleting files or wiping a drive isn’t always enough. Organisations must follow recognised standards for data destruction, such as NIST 800-88 or DoD 5220.22-M, to ensure that data cannot be recovered.” Gavin Griffiths, managing director of Insurgo, adds: “What makes disposal more urgent is not just the increasing amount of data but the more powerful recovery technologies and advanced hacks the market sees each year. Even those we are unaware of yet, which companies spend millions on attempting to defend and deflect. “Hackers’ skills will continue to advance alongside these advancements and they are always looking for the easy open

back door.” John Woolley, chief commercial

officer at Insurgo, adds that amount and appropriateness are two separate concerns. “Amount drives decisions on where to store data,” he says. “The more places that data is stored, the wider the attack vectors become. The decisions that organisations make balance cost and performance. Especially since the larger volumes currently are being driven by AI workloads. Regardless of whether organisations store data within their own boundaries or in public cloud offerings, the underlying technologies remain the same. SSD or magnetic media (disk and tape).”

Ross Brewer, VP and managing director

graylog.org

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Evolving methods With much of business data today

In the cloud, companies now rely on

stored in the cloud, physical methods of destruction, such as shredding hard drives, are less relevant. “In the cloud, companies now rely on encryption and secure deletion protocols to ensure data is completely removed,” says Ross. “Cloud providers often offer ‘data erasure’ services where they wipe data from their servers according to industry standards, and many of them have certifications (like ISO/IEC 27001) to show they have followed the protocol. “Cloud services also enable remote wiping, which is critical in cases like employee turnover or device loss. “Effective encryption key management is critical in cloud environments, as is the use of ‘crypto-shredding’, which is a modern cloud-native method (destroying

encryption and secure deletion protocols to ensure data is completely removed.

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