T 4.13 Loss of stored data

The loss of stored data can have a major influence on IT applications. The loss or forgery of application data or customer databases could threaten the existence of private enterprises. In government agencies, the loss or forgery of important data can delay or even preclude administrative work and specialist tasks.

Stored data can be lost for a variety of reasons:

• Demagnetisation of magnetic data media due to ageing or unsuitable environmental conditions (temperature, air moisture),

• Interference of magnetic data media by extraneous magnetic fields

• Destruction of data media by force majeure, e.g. fire or water

• Inadvertent deletion or overwriting of files

• Technical failure of external storage (headcrash)

• Faulty data media

• Uncontrolled changes in stored data (loss of integrity)

• Deliberate deletion of files with computer-viruses etc