Rethinking Security As Trends In Information Sharing Rise

As part of its commitment to secure, on-site data destruction, the team at Resource 1 Electronics is also working to educate the community on some staggering truths when it comes to the vast adoption of digital information.

photo Chuck and Jan McDonald, owners, Anthony Mundis, Vice President of Logistics

After reading a recent report from Rock Health, a startup health care analytics company, President Chuck McDonald, shared his findings and some reasons why it's imperative that we change our thinking when it comes to our digital devices.

"While we're no longer afraid of doing business and storing vast amounts of information on our devices, we need to realize what that means," Chuck McDonald said. "There are countless scams happening on a daily basis, and the adoption of digital storage is going up rapidly, which inevitability leads to the refreshing of devices and begs the question, what to do with the old ones?"

According to the Rock Health report, mobile health activity is up 17 percent, meaning those users polled (over 4,000) use some form of mobile health tracking; 12 percent use wearables (Fitbits and the like); and 7 percent are interested in or are pursuing telemedicine, a growing field that allows doctors to see patients over FaceTime.

"That means the overall adoption is 28 percent, and these people are doing the basics of all their health care done through email," McDonald shared. "From the physical, tangible things like your prescriptions to advice and counseling, this highly sensitive info has to travel through so many channels before it reaches its destination of your computer or device. We need to be careful about the services used and take extra care when it comes time to upgrade your device, and destruction is really the only option."

McDonald shared another statistic from the report that shows 92 percent of people either agree or strongly agree they should be in control of who has access to their health data. However, that becomes counterintuitive with the frequent use of our phones and apps for tracking and then not taking the proper steps with the old devices when they become outdated.

"Simply upgrading isn't an option," he said. "It's an imperative, especially when all this sensitive data goes into your device, that you not just go to buy a new phone or upgrade. Those old devices have to go somewhere and typically to justify the cost, we wipe and resell. There's this inherent problem of that info being compromised if the phone or tablet isn't properly destroyed."

McDonald added that now that everything about us is more digital, we need to be more hesitant to do to factory wipes and resell devices, and look at a new phone as being full price to provide that much-needed security and peace of mind.

"What we want to do as a company is help people understand it's not the same landscape it used to be," he added. "With the amounts of personal data on devices and with software becoming more and more impressive to be able to pull information off of devices, it's really no longer even fathomable to do a factory wipe and resell. We have to start seeing this with the utmost precision and care and it cannot be taken lightly. We insist on shredding hard drives and cellphones, but it's really the only option to really protect your data and know you are in the clear."

All clients receive a live certificate of destruction outlining every device processed and destroyed, which ensures clients remain compliant with governing organizations, as well as certifying that their companies have taken all the proper steps in protecting their sensitive data.

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Resource 1 Electronics services the Southeast region including Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville, Birmingham and Atlanta. To find out more, call 423-870-7824 or visit resource1electronics.com.

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