Press Releases

McAfee Reminds Users to Stay Safe When Recycling Their Mobile Devices

Great reminder from McAfee today, Earth day, on how to safely dispose of your old computers, external hard drives and mobile devices. Chances are that you have saved lots of  personal info on these devices and, unless you wipe them clean before disposal, you might run the risk of handing your personal info over to unscrupulous persons. And don’t think because you throw your old computers over into a big recycle dumpster that no one will go foraging…

Happy Earth day!

Recycling and other environmentally friendly practices are top of mind today, and as we reflect on how we can improve our habits of reducing, reusing, and recycling, we should also think about how this applies to technology.

Many of us have devices that we no longer use, and we know that the best way to dispose of them is to recycle. McAfee would like to take this opportunity to remind your readers that they need to stay vigilant about being safe when it comes to recycling their devices, whether they be computers, external hard drives, mobile phones, or tablets. Before getting rid of these devices, always remember to wipe the data completely. This includes text messages, emails, contacts, and personal files, among other confidential data.

Robert Siciliano, an online security expert to McAfee, provides some easy-to-follow instructions for how to wipe and overwrite data from mobile devices in this blog post: “This Earth Day, ‘Clean’ Your Device Before You Recycle It.” He cautions that it’s possible for people to retrieve data left over on a hard drive and reminds readers that identity theft is a very real possibility and can happen to anyone. “This Earth Day, join the movement and demonstrate support for environmental protection – just make sure to protect yourself first!”