Burdened by data security issues, organizations hold onto 'useless hardware'

Dive Brief:

Organizations are carrying the dead weight of onsite storage assets, holding onto "useless hardware" that could invite security or compliance risks, according to a Blancco survey of 600 organizations in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, Japan and China. Two in five companies with in-house data storage spend more than $100,000 annually on unusable hardware.
Many organizations are sitting on hard drives that are past the useful life and due back to the manufacturer, incurring additional costs, according to Blancco. Almost one-quarter of businesses hold onto hardware because of the difficulties associated with returning drives, lack of time or resources, and internal privacy and security concerns.
When it comes to removing data off of the hardware, manual methods are often inefficient and "archaic," and half of organizations have to wipe and return the drives individually, according to the report. Even physical destruction, magnetic erasure and cryptographic erasure can fail in the right circumstances.

Dive Insight:

With the average organization storing one-third of its data onsite, and almost three-quarters using end-of-life assets, it's a common problem across industry verticals.

As prominent as cloud computing is, only 10% to 20% of workloads are estimated to sit in the public cloud today. In addition to private clouds, most organizations still rely heavily on data centers, especially in regulated industries.

Many organizations use data centers spread across multiple locations, geographically dispersing the hardware and management.

Managing sensitive information extends farther than data center hardware. Many organizations also replace their devices every few years, creating more dangerous e-waste that can be scanned for lingering information.

Data privacy regulations are holding businesses more accountable for what data they have on consumers and where they are storing it. Failing to wipe PII from a hard drive, whether by consumer request or before returning to the manufacturer, could cost a company large fines.