CS Nov-Dec 2020

data disasters
BRAKING BAD!
CAR OWNERS COULD BE PUTTING THEIR PERSONAL DATA AT RISK BY NOT CLEARING
THIS BEFORE SELLING THEIR CARS, ACCORDING TO CONSUMER WATCHDOG WHICH?
AWhich? survey has revealed that
car owners could be putting their
personal information seriously at
risk by failing to clear their data before
selling their cars. In a survey of over
14,000 drivers who sold cars in the
last two years, four in five failed to
wipe information transferred from their
phone, such as contact numbers, home
address and even WiFi passwords, to
their cars before they sold them.
Chris Harris, EMEA technical director
at Thales, has been looking at the clear
dangers of this behaviour, and what
drivers and car manufacturers can do
to stop sensitive data falling into the
wrong hands. "When selling a car, we're
usually quick to remove our possessions -
whether that's CDs, a roof rack, or
personalised seat covers. However,
many of us are failing to remove our
more 'invisible' possessions, and with
cars becoming increasingly connected,
they are swiftly becoming a hotbed
for potentially lucrative sensitive data,
including addresses, recent calls and
birthdays.
"The majority of us wouldn't be
comfortable sharing this kind of
information with complete strangers,
so it's concerning to see consumers
unwittingly hand this data across,"
adds Harris. "Whether you're selling
a car, taking a ride with a friend or
even returning a rental car, it's essential
to practice good data hygiene and
protect your personal data. However,
manufacturers need to be doing more
to ensure data hygiene is easy to practice
and drivers know how to remove this
data."
He offers what he describes as "three
quick tips" for keeping such data safe
when selling your car:
1. When you come to sell your car,
consider all the places where your
personal information may be stored and
find out from the car's manual how to
delete or erase it. Most of us wouldn't
be comfortable sharing our address,
contacts and recent messages with a
complete stranger, but that's effectively
what we're doing by not clearing
sensitive data from our cars.
2. Go through any accounts or apps
that you may have connected to the
vehicle, and ensure you've logged out
and removed any saved data. You won't
want the new owner benefiting from
services you've subscribed to - and, just
as importantly, the new owner probably
won't be too grateful when your app
unknowingly starts to control their new
vehicle.
3. Finally, check for old-school methods
of storing data. Did you have a USB stick
or CD in the glovebox with music you
were playing in the car? What else might
that memory stick have had on it? Even
files you thought you had deleted can
often be recovered from hard drives and
USB sticks.
www.computingsecurity.co.uk @CSMagAndAwards Nov/Dec 2020 computing security
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