Skin in the Game with Data Security part 2....continued

PORT TALBOT, Wales - Sept. 1, 2013 - PRLog -- Skin in the game continued, part 2.

To do data security properly to keep up with certification may no longer be a no cost proposition.   There are a variety of data erasure software solutions in the market place to help you meet your process goals.  However, there is sourcing decisions based on price alone allow uncontrolled risk into the ITAD process.  Also, such no cost solutions don’t offer more benefit as far as service and process efficiencies.

CERTIFICATION

What does a PASS certificate mean?  Does it mean that the hard drive is completely erased or sort of erased, and according to whom, exactly?  Well, as much as one may consider ourselves an expert in any area, the due diligent action is to seek out the strongest third party expert that one can find to test out the solution.  For folks in the data security business, the holy grail of third party expertise is a government authority, like CESG authority.

When we refer to certified, the reference is not to a self-certified claim or a claim by a company that was paid to tell others it works.  With a certified solution from a government body, there is certainty the solution is being tested with rigor.   And with rigor, there is no rubber stamp process.  There is significant R&D time and financial investment to gain a certification.   This is where your software vendor is doubling down and putting ‘skin in the game’ that underpins your data security process.

So, what is the cost of the certification?  It varies depending on if you are doing a government specific certification or common criteria certification. The total cost to a company can range between $200K to upwards of $500k inclusive of all the direct and indirect costs.  And, this is just for the initial certification.   Certifications are not static and become less meaningful over time.  As, technology changes and the software evolves to keep pace with technology and the marketplace, a recertification is necessary.  While not as costly as the initial certification, there is significant investment to maintain a certification standard in the solution.

OPERATIONAL COSTS

Well, is freeware free?  Most of us would say that something is free if you did not pay for it.  IT asset disposal services are performed in various ways.  Some outfits are automated in their process and others perform hands on manual processes to accomplish their process goals.   With freeware, usually the software product is fixed and the ITAD process works around the software.   This is where freeware operationally costs the ITAD a ‘hidden’ cost to use it.

The best case that I can describe is the organization that paid nothing for software, but are compensating the limitations of the software by paying staff wages to manually collect enter computer asset information, manually move records on and off systems, and consolidate log files.  All this manual activity or ‘exception’ activity by employees adds up cost wise again and again.  Other data software erasure solutions may have a cost associated, but they have service efficiencies that automatically perform labor saving functions.  And here is the added double benefit.  If you can get software to collect information instead of your team, then you can minimize a lot of potential human error in your process.  One business owner put it to me this way, “I am either paying for someone to manually collect the information or I am paying for it to be done with software.  The software is just more consistent.”

When considering a solution versus a freeware solution, then you need to examine the value of the solution.   Yes, you are paying for software, but you are getting this value in return that is measured in tangible savings and intangible benefits, like the following:

Data Erasure Certified by Government body or equivalent
Productivity Improvements. Ex, Records and Asset collection and consolidation
Ongoing Product Development that keeps up with technology changes
Product Support and Expertise
Product Liability

The value proposition for freeware is straight forward too.  When you pay little to nothing for something, then consequently can expect nothing in return as far as performance.  So, the ‘skin in the game’ is really for a data erasure solution that provides a vested and financial interest in you and your customer’s outcome.

References

¹ The Bucks Stop at IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) Presentation by Robert Schafer, Gartner, Inc.

About the Author

Joe Mount, VP of Sales & Marketing, Tabernus

Joe Mount is Vice President responsible for sales and marketing leadership for Tabernus.  Since joining Tabernus in 2004, Joe has been instrumental in securing major customer relationships, developing the E-series hardware product offerings, and scaling delivery of Enterprise Erase® software brand to global clientele.  Prior to joining Tabernus, Joe held various leadership and engineering positions at Dell Inc, Applied Materials, and U.S. Army.  Joe holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering degree from Georgia Institute of Technology

About Tabernus

Tabernus is a leading provider of certified data erasure software and hardware solutions used by companies of all sizes to completely remove all data from hard drive storage devices.  With headquarters in Austin, Texas, its European offices are in London and South Wales.

Established in 2002, the company now offers easy to install and operate data erasure tools as both software and hardware solutions.

Tabernus has been formally certified for government use to securely erase protectively marked data after independent testing carried out by QinetiQ, a British global defence technology company under contract to the Government’s Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG).

Tabernus partners include the OEM, Defence, Public/Private Sector, Health Care and IT Recycling and Disposal sectors.

www.tabernus.com

For North America please call the Sales and Operations team at 1-888-700-8560 or email:  sales@tabernus.com.

For UK and Europe please call the UK based Sales and Operations Team direct at +44 (0) 845 689 1350 or email: uksales@tabernus.com

For more press information, please contact:

Kathryn Dempster, PR for Tabernus, Swansea, UK: +44 (0) 845 689 1350 or email: marketing@tabernus.com