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TECHNOLOGY
BETWEEN WASHINGTON Mutual getting blackmailed after selling computers with sensitive information and now another firm's ATM disk drives showing up on eBay, banks might need to think harder about how they trash their computers.
Properly disposing of disk drives, servers and other obsolete equipment is crucial to safeguarding company and customer data. It's often a backburner concern as bank technology staff contend with viruses and other security threats. "You have to update antivirus programs weekly and sometimes daily," says Rob Walters, vp of distributed computing services at Union Bank of California, which runs 10,500 computers.
A major finance company based in New York has a warehouse full of old computers sitting idle, says Alan Brill, a computer forensics guru in the technology services division of investigative firm Kroll Worldwide. Its technology department doesn't have time to...