ST, Aug 19, 2006
Second-hand PCs a fraud data-mine
Nigerian criminals find valuable data on hard disks of old PCs from Britain
LONDON - FRAUDSTERS in Nigeria have managed to retrieve Internet banking details stored on recycled PCs sent from Britain to Africa, putting the privacy and pockets of thousands of Britons at risk.
The information, which is found on the PC's hard disk, is then sold in West Africa for less than £20 (S$60), reported the BBC's Real Story.
Deleting files from a PC is not enough, warned anti-fraud experts, who said documents on a hard disk are easy to access if the drive is not wiped by special programmes before it is given away.
According to the BBC, nearly every PC market in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos is rife with second-hand computers from all over the developed world.
'Once you let your computer go away, your so-called personal computer is no longer personal, it becomes very public,' said environmental campaigner Jim Puckett.
Many of the PCs found on sale in Lagos had come from British council recycling points.
To show the ease of tracking data on a hard disk, the BBC asked a computer forensic expert to trace the original owners of 17 hard drives bought from Nigeria for £15 each.
The data found on the drives included bank account numbers, passwords and e-mails - some of which led to a Mr Ted Roberts of Essex, who said he had dropped his PC off at a local council recycling point.
'I am absolutely gob- smacked that information has come off a computer in Nigeria,' he said when told that his hard drive had made readily available details relating to his family, car and even his bank account.
Although Britons are still being urged to give away their old PCs, they have been told to wipe the hard drive - not just to remove bank details but also other personal information such as home addresses, said the BBC.
The process overwrites what is already contained on the drive and is more effective than simply deleting files, said anti-fraud expert Owen Roberts. Alternatively, people should remove their hard drives before giving away their computers.
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