Computer Repair Shops are Not Safe

At least according to this test, half of the time, the tech will be snooping on your private data.

Researchers at University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, recovered logs from laptops after receiving overnight repairs from 12 commercial shops. The logs showed that technicians from six of the locations had accessed personal data and that two of those shops also copied data onto a personal device. Devices belonging to females were more likely to be snooped on, and that snooping tended to seek more sensitive data, including both sexually revealing and non-sexual pictures, documents, and financial information.

I’ve written before about the IT people in your company who probably know more about you than you might think. This now extends to taking your personal devices to a repair shop. You should assume someone might be surfing through your data while working on your computer, and you should decide if you are OK with that or if the physical destruction of the device after being replaced is the safer option.

H/T to Bruce Shneier where I originally saw this story.

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