Glossary

Asset Management - The process whereby a large organization collects and maintains a comprehensive list of the items it owns such as hardware and software. This data is used in connection with the financial aspects of ownership such as calculating the total cost of ownership, depreciation, licensing, maintenance, and insurance.

Asset Recovery - A process used for the safe removal of retired assets from storage or a working environment. Logistics, tracking, testing, auditing, inventorying and redeploying or remarketing are integral parts of the process.

Asset Tracking - The process of tracking the movement of assets through the Asset Recovery process. Typically accomplished through capturing specific criteria related to a particular asset (i.e. serial numbers). Data is captured through software based applications.

Audit/Test - An examination of assets to account for physical condition as well as functionality of the asset. Criteria such as make, model, serial number are also captured during this phase.

Data Erasure - The removal of data from storage media ( i.e. hard drives, tape, CD's, etc…). The Department of Defense has set an industry standard for the safe removal of data from storage media (refer to data security section of the website for more detail).

Data Security - The overall process for implementing policies and procedures for the handling of storage media throughout the Asset Recovery process.

Disposal - The act or process of getting rid of something.

DoD5220.22-M - In order to be sure that a deleted file really is deleted, it is necessary to overwrite the data sectors of that file. This process is not simply "erasing" or "formatting" the drives, this is not sufficient, as there are numerous tools available to recover "lost" data on disk drives. The Department of Defense has published guidelines for wiping magnetic media to guarantee that all data previously contained on that magnetic media is gone forever, this specification is DOD5220.22-M.

This specification requires that every single location on a magnetic media device is written to three individual times, first by writing a fixed value (0x00) once, then its compliment value (0xff) once, and finally random values once. After the random value overwrite is complete, the disk is read to verify the overwrites to make sure there is no lingering pattern.

Environmental Compliance - Documented policies and procedure to ensure that the Asset Recovery process is in compliance with Federal, State and local laws and ordinances.

FACTA - The Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003 (FACTA) added new sections to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA, 15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.), intended primarily to help consumers fight the growing crime of identity theft. Accuracy, privacy, limits on information sharing, and new consumer rights to disclosure are included in FACTA. (Pub. L. 108-159, 111 Stat. 1952)

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act - The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Safeguards Rule requires financial institutions to prevent unauthorized access to non-public personal information. Financial institutions must take steps to ensure the security and confidentiality of non-public personal information such as:

• A consumer's name, address, social security number, and account number
• The fact than an individual is a customer of a particular financial institution
• Information a consumer provides on an application
• Information from a "cookie" obtained in using a website
• Credit histories on a consumer report obtained by a financial institution

HIPPA - The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 established privacy requirements and security standards for protecting the confidentiality and integrity of individually identifiable health information. Virtually every healthcare organization has been affected including health care providers, health plans, public health authorities, and healthcare clearinghouses.

IT - Short for Information Technology, the broad subject concerned with all aspects of managing and processing information, especially within a large organization or company. Because computers are central to information management, computer departments within companies and universities are often called IT departments. Some companies refer to this department as IS (Information Services) or MIS (Management Information Services).

Lifecycle Management - A process used to manage IT hardware from procurement, installation, maintenance as well as recovery.

Logistics - The process of organizing the physical movement of assets from the locations where they reside to the Asset Recovery receiving point. Includes knowledge of facilities, transportation, customs, bills of lading and receiving procedures.

Recycle - To put or pass through a cycle again, as for further treatment. To use again, especially to reprocess.

Refurbished - To bring equipment back to specifications and condition that are consistent with the same characteristics of the original unit.

Remarketing - The resale of assets received throughout the Asset Recovery process.

RFQ - Request For Quotation

Sarbanes Oxley - Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404

Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley specifically calls for US-listed companies to establish and maintain the necessary internal control mechanisms to ensure the financial reporting process complies with the law. In order to comply with section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, companies must implement internal controls that:

• Expire access to spreadsheets with errors
• Protect data from access and modification by unauthorized users
• Track actions on data as it crosses application and organizational boundaries