The three principal Data Sanitization techniques: Physical destruction, Cryptographic erasure, and Data erasure; meet data sanitization standards; however, many others do not. These inadequate data sanitization procedures hardly make data irrecoverable. Some of Incomplete Data Sanitization methods are:
- Reformatting, which is performed on a working disk drive to delete its contents. This technique leaves most of the existing data on the storage device so the data can be retrieved with forensic tools available online.
- Factory Reset is most often found on mobile devices, tablets, and the Internet of Things (IoT), although it can be found on other IT resources such as routers and computers. A factory reset removes all user data and restores a device to its factory settings. Some manufacturers allow cryptographic erasing as part of the factory reset.
- Data wiping is often used interchangeably with data deletion ensure; however, there are fundamental differences. Data wiping is the process of overwriting data without verifying that the overwriting has succeeded in overwriting all sectors of the storage device and does not produce a certified report. Therefore, this method is not considered an approved method for data sanitization.
- Data Clearing is a security level defined by NIST that protects against keyboard attacks and applies logical data sanitization techniques in all user-addressable storage locations for protection against simple recovery techniques and non-invasive data.
Why is correct data sanitization crucial?
As software’s service life and storage capacity increase, IT assets retain critical business data after withdrawal. When a company’s IT resources are nearing the end of their useful life, they are erased to delete all sensitive data in the equipment before destroying or reusing it.
This deletion is necessary as more and more data are moved to the digital memory, increasing security issues if the device is given to another user. Companies adopt increasingly complex and extensive data sanitization procedures to erase data before dismantling their activities.
The security of data sanitization software has become a real concern with sharing and storing cloud-based information. It has become essential for governments and private companies to develop and implement data sanitization regulations to prevent data loss or other serious security issues.
arimas provides Data Sanitization solutions able to protect against any dispute: delete the content and all related data, or modify it so that it is not identifiable. The data will be erased and unrecoverable, thanks to arimas’ encryption methods.
