Have you ever thought about making some extra cash by selling your used PC or Android smartphone? Well now you should think again – that extra money may not be worth losing your privacy.
Avast, a company with over 25 years of experience in the antivirus industry, recently purchased 20 Android smartphones on eBay to see if they could recover personal data from used smartphones. The answer was yes – they found an abundant amount of personal data from these phones.
Sellers used traditional tools to “wipe” out their data prior to the sale; Avast proved that just deleting that data was ineffective.
Among the list of recovered data was 40,000 photos, 750 emails and text messages, four previous owners’ identities, and various other types of data (including one loan application).
Just deleting a file using the standard method on the phone doesn’t really mean it is deleted. Rather the operating system removes the pointer to the file and the space is now marked as available. The file needs to be overwritten otherwise it can be retrieved later. Your computer works in the same way, so think about that before donating or reselling your used home or work computer.
Currently, we are often talking about privacy issues since most everything we do in business or our personal lives is recorded electronically. There is great value in stolen data and thieves are out there to exploit this fact.
More than 80,000 people list their used phones for sale each day using popular sites like eBay and Craigslist. Taking a few extra steps like installing avast! Anti-Theft from the Google Play Store for your Android smartphone can protect your privacy if you do decide to sell your phone.
Businesses need to safeguard their company data and may require help to do so. One of CTI Technology’s areas of expertise is in installing and managing security measures for your business.
