Identity-theft expert Robert Siciliano bought 20 used computers and phones from Craigslist. A forensics lab recovered sensitive data from 10 of them: account passwords, credit card info, medical records. Before selling old devices, wipe the drive completely and reinstall the operating system.
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sell your personal data along with it. Mark, Kelly, you got to be careful. You know, these days everybody's looking for a little extra cash during this Great Recession. Well, one way to do that is to unload things you don't use anymore, right? Well, when it comes to selling used computers and smartphones, we've got an important warning for you tonight. That device could come back to haunt you. Question: what private data is on your smartphone or your computer? Everything, such as, uh, contacts, work stuff, calendar.
Keep all the numbers on the cell phone.
I keep important text messages in the Cell phone. It's not the type of info you'd want to sell to the highest bidder, or at least it shouldn't be.
Hi Jim, I am looking at your Craigslist ad for your Dell Latitude.
Identity theft expert and McAfee security consultant Robert Siciliano conducted a 2-month experiment with funding from McAfee. Robert went on the website Craigslist and purchased used electronics from people all over.
Laptops, desktops, netbooks, notebooks, iPhones, iPads. Hard drives. Just like this.
Robert sent the used devices he bought to a data recovery company to see just how much information could be retrieved. A computer forensic expert spent a week scanning the drives and phones, and of the 20 devices examined, 10, or half, were filled with people's personal and private information.
So this one was bank account information and pornography.
People's entire digital lives for the taking. Pirated movies, logins, passwords, bills, tax returns. Check out the imaging from this disk. Family pictures, an eviction notice, a child support demand letter, a health acceptance form. One computer belonged to a business owner, and it contains private information about employees, business plans, even legal contracts. And here's some more pictures, along with the Social Security numbers and birth dates for an entire family. This type of raw data is a gold mine for an identity thief. It's almost like handing them a credit card.
If a bad guy had bought these machines and extracted this data, they could take over their existing accounts, or they could open up new accounts. They could get new credit cards, new bank loans. In some situations, they could get a passport under somebody's name, a driver's license under their name, even tap into their medical records.
And this is interesting. Robert Siciliano says half of the devices that still had personal information came from people who had thought they'd wiped them clean. Sometimes manually deleting files is not enough, though. If you really want to remove all the trace of ownership, experts recommend 3 steps. First, wipe the drive clean, format it, and then reinstall the operating system. It's also a good idea to run a whiteout program just to be safe. Getting a couple hundred dollars for a used computer or your phone is nice, but it's not nearly worth the aggravation or cost of a stranger getting your personal information and having a field day.
One guy even said to me, he said, "If I'm still logged into my Gmail, could you please log me out?" Yeah, Robert Siciliano there says that all the private data recovered from all the computers have all been destroyed already.
And if you're purchasing a used device, he recommends immediately installing a protection program that would help remove viruses and keep hackers away. Guys, yeah, that's a good reminder, Mark.
Thank you.
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