Steven Lawton published an article on Dark Reading that explores the potential risks of retired hardware and forgotten cloud virtual machines.
A recent report revealed that 56% of decommissioned routers sold on the secondary market contained sensitive corporate material, highlighting the regular exposure of confidential data. Greg Hatcher, CEO of cybersecurity consultancy White Knight Labs, explains that cloud-based vulnerabilities usually result from misconfigurations or naïve actions. He emphasizes the importance of having both hardware and software asset inventories to protect networks and cloud environments. Hatcher also notes that sensitive data might not stay hidden, even when applications are deleted from retired hard disks. Access policies can remediate vulnerabilities by allowing specific individuals to access data within a platform, while guidelines and security frameworks can help define controls for decommissioning hardware and protecting data.