Posts Tagged ‘Abandoned media’

How to Avoid Privacy Breach by Data Recovery Providers?

Friday, January 15th, 2010

In previous blogs we discussed the many sources of data loss, and that prevention can minimize many, but not all occurrences.   Execs in charge of data access and security sometimes overlook these less likely scenarios because they are few and far between.  But the impact of such occurrences can be potentially devastating and require timely resolution. Since most companies do not have an in-house data recovery lab, the only option, is to send the defective media to a third party lab.  So when that dreadful day comes, and data loss is looming, there is a frantic scramble to find a reputable data recovery lab.   The pitfall is that under the time constrains to save the data and the day, due diligence is typically limited to price and turnaround, often neglecting to take into account one of the key consideration SECURITY; “Is the data recovery company safe?”  Is the data recovery lab at par with the customer’s data security policies to prevent data leaks or at worse data breech?

In a recent article in Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/05/data-recovery-privacy-technology-cio-network-breaches.html.  By Andy Greenberg  he cites a study done by Ponemon Institute ,  clearly linking data recovery to data breach, potentially causing a bad situation to turn real ugly.

Conclusion:

Fortunately, CIOs and IT execs can prevent this unsavory scenario by pre-selecting a data recovery lab who can maintain the security level the customer requires while successfully recovering the data.

How to maintain an edge in Data Recovery

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Glipms into Cherry Systems parts inventory

Glimpse into Cherry Systems parts inventory

Due to the well documented economic woes in 2009, we experienced an increase in the number of abandoned drives.  Let me explain; an abandoned drive is one that Cherry Systems has made repeated attempts to contact the customer to either proceed with the recovery or retrieve the drive, to no avail, often up to 90 days after the evaluation is completed.   At that point we consider the media abandoned and move it into our long term storage, adjacent to our 9000+ parts inventory . In is not unusual for customers to return a year (or two!) later hoping to find an abandoned drive.  In all cases with the help of our advance job-tracking-systems we located the drive in our storage in a matter of hours and either returned it or completed the recovery to the surprise and delight of the client. 

Although I do not recommend this strategy for a client, this scenario tests and reaffirms how our systems and processes helps us keep our commitment to our  customers;

  1. We do not sell or reuse abandoned drives (except the use of non-data containing components)
  2. We take as good care (or better) of our customer’s media than they do themselves.

 It  is particularly significant at these times when many shoppers are so price sensitive, to realize the value of good, dependable and reliable service.