Data shredding applications come in a number of forms. Most people are at least somewhat familiar with document destruction, that is, the shredding of hard copies, such as paper files. But, as technology has evolved, data shredding has come to mean many different things, but among the most common is hardware destruction. So, read on to learn more about data shredding applications and what you need to know.

Data shredding applications can be found in a wide variety. The purpose of data shredding is to keep sensitive materials confidential, away from third parties, particularly the public domain and competitors. For instance, a prime example can be found in hard drive destruction, a form of data shredding.

Since hard drives are ubiquitous in a number of business applications, including intellectual property and research and development, they typically contain very sensitive information. When it’s time to retire one or more machines, those hard drives, even if deleted, still contain bits of information on them that can be restored with sophisticated techniques. However, when data shredding is done properly through hard drive destruction, absolutely no trace of any intellectual property, research, development, or any other type of work product will remain.

Why Businesses Use Data Shredding

Businesses of all kinds, across many industries, use data shredding on a regular basis. These include startups, technology firms, law firms, medical manufacturers, aerospace and engineering, and much more. The purpose of data shredding is to protect businesses from liability. This liability could be a number of things, including legal liability, and breach of customer trust. Additionally, it could entail exposing sensitive data to the public or be used as a ransom application in order to get a business to pay up to keep said sensitive information safe.

It is important to understand that data shredding is not merely the deletion or wiping of a hard drive or other types of hard wear. Instead, it is an intricate and sophisticated process that removes everything that was previously stored on the device. Deletion or wiping does not actually remove the data from the hardware, it just removes the reference materials. In other words, the actual data remains, just without a quick reference entry point. This is why it is critical to have data shredding done by experienced professionals who can truly keep sensitive material safe through proven processes.

As you can plainly see, it is necessary to have data shredding done in order to protect the most sensitive information.