McAfee's Robert Siciliano bought 30 used phones and computers from Craigslist and found that 75% of Android devices still exposed personal data after a factory reset, including Social Security numbers and login credentials. iPhones and Macs erased data much more reliably. Windows machines often retained tax files, passwords, and banking information.
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An alert tonight. There's a new way you could be giving away your most personal information. With upgrades and new technology available almost every day, a lot of people are selling old smartphones or computers. But before you sell, there's one simple thing you should do first. Tonight, Local 2 consumer investigator Amy Davis reveals the new test that can help protect your private information.
Spend just 5 minutes downtown and it's clear how much we're all using smartphones these days. Messages and texts Text, web, and apps, it seems like talking on them is way down on the list. Instead, we do and keep almost everything on them. I handle all my business email.
Passwords.
Photographs.
Banking.
Personal information. Basically, it's a life organizer is what it is. Do you know what a life changer it could be if all that information was shared with the wrong person? Tonight, we're learning how easy that could happen and you would never know it.
We're continually upgrading to different technologies.
And when we upgrade our phones and computers, many times we sell or give away our old devices. You see them all over Craigslist and eBay. But McAfee identity theft expert Robert Siciliano says that can mean putting all of your personal information right in someone else's hands. Even when you think you've made every effort to take your personal files off. He checked out Craigslist and bought 30 used computers, laptops, netbooks, tablets, and almost every kind of smartphone. The sellers thought the computers and phones were wiped clean, reset to make sure all of their information was deleted. But guess what?
On a reinstall or a reformat, data still can be extracted.
On Windows computers and laptops, Siciliano found tax files and passwords, family photos, and bank information.
For a quick turn, they can get an entire family's Social Security numbers, their usernames and passwords to all their different websites just by buying a laptop off of Craigslist.
But the real shocker is what he found on old cell phones and which model gave up old owners' personal information 75% of the time. Was it the Android, the BlackBerry, or the iPhone?
The Android operating system simply fails to reset the data when you do a factory reset. That their software, the operating system itself, does not do an effective job of removing the data.
And that could mean your information in someone else's hands. For droid phones, Siciliano says not only would he never sell or recycle them, he'd just smash it to pieces.
Your identity isn't worth the $50 you might get for that device.
The good news In other news, iPhones, iPads, BlackBerrys, and Macs did the best job at erasing your information. The test showed almost all of those old devices were loaded with viruses, so beware. And our expert says the best advice for getting rid of old phones and computers is to sell them to a trusted friend who won't sell them to someone else. Amy Davis, KPRC Local 2.
Google, which makes the Android phone, has not commented on our expert's test. Microsoft says it's made considerable security and privacy improvements that protect user data. For its new Windows 7 operating system.
