Residual Data: Threats at the Tail End of Devices By: Sunil Chandna
Data is growing at a phenomenal pace. Worldwide it is expected to only get steeper in the coming years. According to Forbes, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data was created every day in 2018, and 90% of the entire data in the world was created in the preceding 2 years alone! A Seagate IDC report predicts that the global data sphere will grow from 33 Zettabytes (1 ZB=1 trillion GB) in 2018 to 175 by 2025, indicating a 430% growth in 7 years! Managing the security of this data while it’s being produced, stored, and consumed across a huge number of devices is a key challenge. The IDC informs that roughly 400 million computing devices were shipped globally in 2019, which helps size up the potential data threat scenarios across the lifespan of a device. Further, the rapid evolution of technology with user needs and aspirations has shortened the lifespan of devices. A large number of used devices is being disposed of - sold, exchanged, returned, recycled - in the secondary market, without sufficient awareness (and discretion) concerning the potential data threats.
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iG Journal 2019 Issue 2
