Data creation in 2015 is as simple as sending an email or text message, but data destruction is not always as straightforward. With a litany of devices connected to corporate networks, getting rid of a duplicative data that may be stored remotely on mobile devices or another endpoint is not always possible, and past that, even when data is thought to have been wiped from a hard drive, it may still linger in some form or another.

That's according to findings of a new study released by Blancco Technology Group and Kroll Ontrack, which looked at the prevalence of data “ghosting” on secondhand devices and technologies. According to that survey, “In an examination of 122 pieces of second-hand equipment, 48 percent of the hard disk drives and solid state drives contained residual data, while thousands of leftover emails, call logs, texts/SMS/IMs, photos and videos were retrieved from 35 percent of the mobile devices.”

Additionally, the research found that 57 percent of used mobile devices and 75 percent of used hard drives purchased from Amazon, eBay and Gazelle have had unsuccessful deletion attempts previously made.