Blog 8: One Person's Trash is Another Person's Treasure (Dumpster Diving)

Image courtesy of keerati at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In my effort to increase security awareness and obtain a cultural acceptance, I wanted to bring a focus on the importance of properly disposing personal items, such as equipment, documents, and data, to prevent individuals from snooping through your trash looking for personal information. As the title of the blog states, one person's trash is another person's treasure.

I remember when I was around 9 years old, my brother and I were walking down the street, on a hot Summer day, towards the playground. It just so happened to be trash day and everyone had their items to be disposed of sitting nicely on the curb in front of their homes. Some of the items were in large bins, some in bags, while others were in their regular form staring right back at us as we walked by. 

As we continued towards the playground, a particular item caught the attention of my brother. He stopped abruptly and strongly nudged me in the side to take a look. After yelling "OUCH!" and attempting to nudge him back (typical sibling love), I focused in the direction of the object of interest. Lo and behold, sitting right in front of us, waiting to be taken by the sanitation engineer, was the first color television my family would own (sure glad it wasn't the last). That's right, I am either that old, or we were that poor!    

Now, this television didn't have any personal identifiable information (PII) relating back to the original owners, nor were we looking for any items of reference whatsoever. In fact, we weren't even looking for a television on that day. However, it is an example of how one person's trash can become another person's treasure. In this case, the treasure was a color television that only required 2 to 3 kicks in the side to make it turn on.

If we were to fast forward a couple of decades, we may be able to change the story from a disposed television to a personal computer. In this situation, the computer could have a hard drive that may hold several pieces of personal data within the magical platters of the metal box. If a malicious user were to obtain this data, they could potentially learn a lot about the previous owner of the computer, even PII. Even more, and moving forward another decade, we may find a thumb drive nestled deep in the bottom of a trash bin, which may hold some interesting information as well, such as financial, tax, and password documentation. Would the "treasure" be the computer/thumb drive, or the data discovered within the devices?  

Once you have decided the device no longer serves your purpose, and to reinforce confidentiality, they need to be properly disposed of, including the wiping of all traces of digital data. Corporations generally have a contract with specific businesses that can provide these types of services. As a consumer, research the correct way to protect your digital data and dispose of your equipment safely, effectively, and securely.

Digital data is not the only item to keep in mind when it comes to garbage day. The items of "ink on paper" are exceptionally easy targets for malicious users to obtain personal information for potentially malicious deeds. Even though some may feel this is the "digital age", many organizations and individuals exchange hard copies of "ink on paper" every day. Some examples of common documents are; tax records, banking financials, health records, bills, invoices, customer receipts, vacation records, and more. Once these documents have been consumed by the viewer, and are no longer required, they tend to be crumbled into a ball and used as a free throw shot off a wall (Yay! 2 points!!). The old saying, "out of sight, out of mind", does not apply here as these document can easily be viewed by an individual diving through your dumpster. In fact, they really do not require any specific tools to obtain this information, other than some gloves and a nose plug.

An easy way to prevent the "ink on paper" from being exposed, to the eyes of another, is to implement a practice of shredding your paper documents. Corporations may also have agreements with businesses that provide secure document shredding services, but as a consumer, pay attention to the type of shredder you utilize for yourself, such as the strip-cut and cross-cut. You want to ensure the document cannot turn into a puzzle that could easily be solved. Instead, make it your goal to reflect the appearance of Ramen Noodles. I have added a picture showing you the difference between the two shredding capabilities below.

Even though that first color television is long gone, I can at least enjoy watching the news about dumpster diving, and other cybersecurity events, in color on my new LED smart TV...which brings a whole new level of security problems of its own!

Thank you for reading! Until next time, remember that you don't have to become a victim of a threat to become aware of a threat!