Security company AVAST decided to do a research experiment. They bought 20 phones from eBay that had been wiped. Here’s what they found:
- More than 40,000 stored photos
- More than 1,500 family photos of children
- More than 750 photos of women in various stages of undress
- More than 250 selfies of what appear to be the previous owner’s manhood
- More than 1,000 Google searches
- More than 750 emails and text messages
- More than 250 contact names and email addresses
- Four previous owners’ identities
- One completed loan application
One phone even had a competitor’s security software installed, but unfortunately it did not help the former owner as it revealed the most personal information out of all the phones we analyzed.
Translation: Wiping your phone doesn’t erase the data if you know how to get it back. Now the company does of course suggest that you use their software to wipe the contents of the phone. But you don’t have to do go that route. Instead, you can follow these instructions from Lifehacker that are not only for Android, but for iOS as well. Either way, you now have proof positive that you need to take additional steps to wipe your data clean from the phone that you plan to sell.
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This entry was posted on July 9, 2014 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Android, Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Wiping Your Android Phone Will NOT Erase Data: AVAST
Security company AVAST decided to do a research experiment. They bought 20 phones from eBay that had been wiped. Here’s what they found:
One phone even had a competitor’s security software installed, but unfortunately it did not help the former owner as it revealed the most personal information out of all the phones we analyzed.
Translation: Wiping your phone doesn’t erase the data if you know how to get it back. Now the company does of course suggest that you use their software to wipe the contents of the phone. But you don’t have to do go that route. Instead, you can follow these instructions from Lifehacker that are not only for Android, but for iOS as well. Either way, you now have proof positive that you need to take additional steps to wipe your data clean from the phone that you plan to sell.
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This entry was posted on July 9, 2014 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Android, Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.