Alternatively called trashing, dumpster diving is the practice of digging through a company’s trash bins or dumpsters to gain information. This act is carried out for a number reasons, from seeking passwords for a network attack, to personal information for social engineering.

How to protect against dumpster diving

To protect yourself or your company from dumpster diving make sure all printed paper is at the very least shredded. Companies with very sensitive printed material may even want to black out the information or even burn all documents. With enough time and resources, it can be possible to piece together shredded paper using scanned in images and software.

All computers, storage devices, and office equipment should also be destroyed. If you want to donate, resell, or give away equipment, purge all data from the devices. Make sure that any hard drives are erased so data cannot be recovered. Any device, disk, or disc capable of storing information should be properly destroyed or erased to prevent sensitive information from being stolen.

  • How to make sure all data is erased on a computer hard drive.

Password, Privacy, Security terms, Threat

  • How to protect yourself while on the Internet.
  • Computer security help and support.