Bank Details On Old Pc's Sold To Nigeria

[Beachcomber]

News item on BBC World to day.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4790293.stm

Bank account details belonging to thousands of Britons are being sold in West Africa for less than £20 each, the BBC's Real Story programme has found.

It discovered that fraudsters in Nigeria were able to find internet banking data stored on recycled PCs sent from the UK to Africa.

The information can be found on a PC's hard disk, which is easy to access if the drive is not wiped before sending.

Anti-fraud expert Owen Roberts said simply deleting files was not enough.

Users should instead use a programme to wipe their hard drive before they sell or give away their PC, a process which over-writes what is already contained on the drive.

Alternatively, people should remove their hard drives before they give away their computers, he said.

"It is surprising how easy it is to obtain documents people leave on their computers," said Mr Roberts, who is head of identity fraud at CPP Group.

Real Story found that second-hand computers from all over the developed world could be found in virtually every PC market in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos.

It said that while there was a genuine market for second-hand PCs in West Africa, identity fraud was a real problem.

Many of the PCs it found on sale in Lagos had come from UK council recycling points.

People are still being urged to give away their old PCs, but only after they have wiped the hard drive - not just to remove any bank details but also other personal information such as home addresses.

The Information Commissioner's Office, the UK government's regulatory office dealing with data protection, said companies had a legal requirement to delete people's personal information from their computers when it was no longer needed.

"It is essential that companies have appropriate procedures in place to ensure that personal records on computer hard drives are rendered unrecoverable when they dispose of computer equipment," said Assistant Commissioner Phil Jones.

"Under the Data Protection Act companies have a duty to store personal information securely and delete it when it is no longer required."

[Scott]

Oops--guess I'll have to be careful of my old computer!

[h90]

I don't get the point....

The Nigerians can have my bank details, what can they do with it (transfer money on my account?).

Even if the log in in the internetbanking is saved in the browser, they are only able to see my bank account (and they will feel very sorry for me, when they see it), but they can not transfer anything without any tan or other security code which is for sure not saved on the computer.

Or do I miss anything?

Add: I just remember my computer logs in automatic at paypal (username and pw is saved) and there you can direct transfer money if the seller does not check the adress.

(a common trick is: Your adress in Lagos, but as country you write France. As many try that to avoid someone get alerted by reading Nigeria, I think maybe the french post is very good, recognize the mistake in country and correct it.

[johnb]

I saw a programme about this last night but i'm sure that they didnt say how you actually 'clean' your hard drive prior to disposal.

Any of you guys know if you need special software to do this?

Johnb

[Simmo]

Any of you guys know if you need special software to do this?

Johnb

Ye[, look for "low level format" utilities or "zero fill" software. Basically it will flip all the bits on your hard drive to 0, erasing all data and partition structures, can take a few hours to complete. I do it to all spare computers we give away / sell from work.

[johnb]

Any of you guys know if you need special software to do this?

Johnb

Ye[, look for "low level format" utilities or "zero fill" software. Basically it will flip all the bits on your hard drive to 0, erasing all data and partition structures, can take a few hours to complete. I do it to all spare computers we give away / sell from work.

Simmo

Thanks for the advice

Johnb

[Lacoste]

I saw a programme about this last night but i'm sure that they didnt say how you actually 'clean' your hard drive prior to disposal.

Any of you guys know if you need special software to do this?

Johnb

Yes i saw the same one on BBC world, they actualy reunited the original owner in England with the hard drive they bought in Nigeria.

I think a hammer would be the best bet.

[johnb]

I saw a programme about this last night but i'm sure that they didnt say how you actually 'clean' your hard drive prior to disposal.

Any of you guys know if you need special software to do this?

Johnb

Yes i saw the same one on BBC world, they actualy reunited the original owner in England with the hard drive they bought in Nigeria.

I think a hammer would be the best bet.

Lacoste

Would you advise Lump or sledge

Johnb

[IMA_FARANG]

I saw a programme about this last night but i'm sure that they didnt say how you actually 'clean' your hard drive prior to disposal.

Any of you guys know if you need special software to do this?

Johnb

Just "deleting" data on a hard drive isn't good enough. Most of those "deletes" simply erase the address heading which makes the normal DOS unable to find the location of the data. However the data remains on the drive, and someone with the proper software can still recover the data. You can reformat the drive to delete information on the drive. There are programs you can buy (one is from Norton, the same people who make the antivirus software) that can overwrite all your data on the drive with random data. I've sold 3 of my laptops in BKK (to get money), and all 3 times I reformated the hard drive, and then used Norton to overwrite all the data on the hard drive. Takes between 12 and 24 hours for a complete overwrite/reformat of the hard drive.

[johnb]

I saw a programme about this last night but i'm sure that they didnt say how you actually 'clean' your hard drive prior to disposal.

Any of you guys know if you need special software to do this?

Johnb

Just "deleting" data on a hard drive isn't good enough. Most of those "deletes" simply erase the address heading which makes the normal DOS unable to find the location of the data. However the data remains on the drive, and someone with the proper software can still recover the data. You can reformat the drive to delete information on the drive. There are programs you can buy (one is from Norton, the same people who make the antivirus software) that can overwrite all your data on the drive with random data. I've sold 3 of my laptops in BKK (to get money), and all 3 times I reformated the hard drive, and then used Norton to overwrite all the data on the hard drive. Takes between 12 and 24 hours for a complete overwrite/reformat of the hard drive.

IAAF

Many thanks for taking the time to respond - much appreciated

Johnb

[britmaveric]

Kill Disk wipes everything

[johnb]

Kill Disk wipes everything

Thanks Brit

Johnb

[Beachcomber]

Go to the wed site of your hard drive and download their free utility program.

This will make a floppy that has some basic HDD tools usually including a Zero fill option. As said this can take some hours depending on the size of the drive.

I have heard that “Format” does not necessarily delete all the information on a drive. Even a “Full Format” does not take as long as a “Zero Fill” so that should indicate something.

Beachcomber.

[opothai]

i was under the impression that if you keep all the original software when you purchased the computer thier is a disk that takes the computer back to it's original state i.e clean, with no information left on the hard drive.

i gave a computer away, but before i did we cleaned [ or hoped ] we cleaned it with the restore disk

does the restore disk clean every thing ???

the programme in question was very interesting as we are told to dispose of our pc's correctly and people taking them to the local council tips, expecting them to be desroyed in an environmentaly correct way, and all they do is send them to africa and india

when the council were approached by the bbc, nobody would speak to them { usual behavior ]

so maybe the best way is to smash it into pieces ensuring the hard disk is destroyed then take it to the tip ??

[sibeymai]

This software tool is from the IBM PC support site. Not sure if it only works on IBM pc,s but it's worth trying:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss...itestyle=lenovo