On the 28th of October, as part of our October Explore events, we spoke to Holly Walker: a Perimeter Security Engineer at Schroeder’s. She discussed with us what happens to our data, and what we should do to protect it. Everyone enjoys spending time on the internet, either talking to family and friends, creating art, or learning new information. The internet has become an integral part of our lives but everything we do creates data, some of which might be personal. Because of this, it is important that we know what to do with our data!
First of all, our data should be encrypted.
Encryption converts information into a form where others cannot read it, so your personal data cannot be seen by other people who may be trying to intercept it. A lot of applications will have inbuilt encryption, whilst other times you may need a VPN (Virtual Private Network).
Read more about data on the Stemettes Zine >>
Second, data should always be backed up.
By backing up your important data, it reduces the chances of what you want to keep going missing. These backups must be carried out regularly to keep the versions as up to date as possible and can be done via cloud services or physical hard drives. As an extra safety measure, it can be important to keep your backups in a different physical location.
Last of all, unwanted data should be permanently deleted.
When we press delete, where does that data go? Is it gone forever? In most cases, it is not, and the data can still be found someone on your device via a magnetic trace left on your hardboard. You can get software such as Sdelete from Microsoft which claim to delete files permanently or overwrite the data in a different form.
