Case Studies
Organizations working with Salma Systems gain a wide variety of benefits, which vary based upon the services our asset recovery clients contract us to perform. The services that we provide are custom-tailored to the needs of large organizations which are refreshing their IT infrastructure.
We are able to help your company during any stage of the IT refresh process – whether your organization is merely in the early stages of investigating how to perform its technology replacement program or is ready to proceed with the process.
Below, you can learn about some of the vertical markets to which we have provided or currently provide our IT asset management services.
Example: Health Care IT Equipment Disposal / Southeast Region
A top hospital (according to a UDSMR study) with almost 500 beds had previously performed a refresh of their computer equipment. After the new equipment was implemented into their network, the old IT equipment was sent into storage – with sensitive patient data still contained on the hard drives of the nearly 400 computers they were finished with. While a limited number of employees supposedly possessed access to the storage area, the fact remained that their hospital had a risk of liability in the event some of the data contained on these hard drives was misplaced, or worse-yet, stolen.
In addition to the sensitive patient data still being present on the hard drives, their hospital had a number of problems which they needed solved:
- Reformatting the hard drives does not completely remove data from them. If we only reformat the drives, is it worth the risk of an information breach? Stolen social security numbers, or patient medical records?
- Once the drives are reformatted (which doesn’t render the data irrecoverable), what do we do with all the equipment? Let it sit? Rent a dumpster and throw it away?
- What if we made a mistake during the disposal process – and secure data leaked, causing harm to someone, and our hospital was fined, or had to pay liability damages? That wouldn’t look good.
- Can our organization outsource the data destruction process to an experienced company, which can certify in writing that they will absorb the liability in the event of a breach?
- If we get rid of the equipment ourselves, which of our staff would need to be pulled off other responsibilities to bring the equipment down to the dumpster (and likely send it to a landfill), piece-by-piece?
- How much would this cost us?
Fortunately for this hospital, Salma Systems managed the entire removal and data destruction process – and not only did we securely destroy their data at no charge, but we paid them money for their equipment, saving them thousands of dollars in up-front costs and helping to mitigate their downstream liability.
How we did it: Using our own staff and vehicles, we securely transported all of their equipment back to our facility for further processing. All equipment coming to our facility which we are contracted to remove the data from gets placed into a secure holding area, which also contains our hard drive degaussing and DoD wipe data erasure (DoD 5220.22-M standard) stations.
Throughout the data destruction process, our trained staff members scan the serial number from each hard drive and include this on a certificate of destruction which is signed by an officer of our company, and we provide a copy of this to our client. This letter puts our necks on the line in the event of any data breach, and as such, we have multiple layers of protection to safeguard data and ensure complete destruction of client information.
This was a much better solution than the alternative.
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Example: Nationwide Telecommunications Provider
Recently, Salma Systems was contracted by a nationwide telecommunications provider to handle the disposal and liquidation of all of their unused IT assets. The provider was constantly evolving their systems to keep up with the cutting edge of telecommunications technology so they had a lot of high value assets that were not being used. The company had neither time nor capabilities of sanitizing their equipment for sale, so they paid a lot of money towards a disposal company to dispose of good electronic equipment with a significant risk of releasing sensitive data to unwanted eyes. Salma Systems changed all of that!
The company contacted Salma Systems for a better solution to dispose of their unwanted IT assets, so we checked their surplus inventory at no obligation and no cost to them. We saw value in their equipment, so we PAID them money rather than them incurring an expense which would have happened with their previous provider. They were so happy because they’re getting rid of their equipment and getting paid for it! Not to mention, their employees were focused on more important tasks because we handled all of the logistics including picking up, testing, selling, and shipping the equipment on their behalf.
Importantly, the telecommunications provider expressed concern regarding the security of the data found on the hard drives within their equipment. They did not have to worry since Salma Systems transported all of their equipment into a secure holding area and our authorized technicians employed our DoD wipe process on all functional hard drives, and utilized hard drive degaussing to destroy all hard drive data. After the data destruction process was completed, we provided a serialized certificate of destruction to the provider and their concerns were immediately solved since their sensitive data was now destroyed and rendered irrecoverable.
You may be doing the wrong thing if you are actually paying someone to get rid of your company’s unwanted used IT assets. Contact us and we will take care of you and your company’s needs of safeguarding sensitive data. We can check your inventory and give you a no-obligation quote that is competitive and fair.
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Interested in learning about how Salma Systems can help your organization securely dispose of its IT assets? Contact a representative today.
