Basic of Data Destruction: What You Should Know

Hey there folks, below I will detail the basics of data destruction. I will start with the essentials and then get into some more of the details for those who are so inclined.

 

TLDR:

If a device is leaving your organization, you should sanitize it to a defensible standard (commonly NIST SP 800-88). “Clear” may be fine for controlled internal reuse, but for devices leaving your control, purge or destroy is typically appropriate. We provide purge-level wiping with verification and reporting, and physical shredding when a drive can’t be purged or your policy requires destruction.

 

We, and many other organizations, follow a standard from NIST. Another standard that is also used is IEEE 2883-2002. We will focus on NIST 800-88 for today.

NIST is the National Institute of Standards and Technology — a U.S. federal agency (part of the Department of Commerce) that develops standards, measurement science, and guidelines that industries and government use to ensure things are consistent, safe, and interoperable.

The reason they are relevant here is the NIST 800-88 standard.

NIST SP 800-88 is NIST’s playbook for media sanitization—i.e., how to make data on storage media infeasible to recover at a chosen level of effort, based on the sensitivity of the data and what you plan to do with the media afterward (reuse, resale, recycle, disposal).

Basically, this standard helps us to organize our plan for proper data sanitization depending on the context and the type of storage media. First, let's dive into the context. By this I mean, where is the data bearing device going?

SP 800-88 Rev. 1, Guidelines for Media Sanitization | CSRC

This flow chart is from the NIST 800-88 Revision 1 document. Clear, Purge, and Destroy are "levels" of sanitization. This chart helps you decide which level to use based on where the data is going. And what the data contains based on its security categorization.

• Clear: Remove data using logical methods so it can’t be recovered with normal software tools (e.g., overwrite/erase user-addressable space, reset to factory where appropriate). Good for reuse inside a controlled environment.
• Purge: Use stronger methods that make recovery infeasible even with advanced lab techniques (e.g., ATA Secure Erase / NVMe sanitize, cryptographic erase by destroying encryption keys, degaussing for some magnetic media). Common choice for resale/redeployment when you want higher assurance.
• Destroy: Physically render the media unusable (shred, pulverize, melt, incinerate, etc.), so data recovery isn’t practical. Used when media won’t be reused or risk is very high.

When you bring a device to someone like us, it is obviously leaving your organizational control. So, if you need certified data destruction from us, we hold ourselves to a Purge level standard for sanitization at a minimum. This allows us to protect people's data while also maximizing sustainability. However, we also have a hard drive shredder because many organizations have a high security categorization. Also, some drives fail and cannot wipe at all. Some drives are not capable of achieving this level of sanitization at all anyway. 

Data sanitization at its most fundamental level simply involves running a command on a computer that is meant to remove the data from the drive the command targets. Some drives were not built with the capability to run a command that can achieve purge level sanitization. Another complicating factor is that some commands necessary for Purge are primarily performed in a Linux based operating system. NVMe drives are an example of this.

This is another screenshot from the NIST 800-88 standard. It details which methods achieve which level of sanitization. They lay these levels out for each type of media from SATA based SSD's to the various HDD's and other things like CD's.

This is performed in a Linux environment. A sample command would be 

sudo nvme sanitize /dev/nvme0n1 -a 0x04

This would perform a "Cryptographic Erase". Not all NVMe's support this command. Some would require one of the other commands listed.

Because of this complication, we implement software that is meant to handle this. We use Blancco. They are an industry leader in data sanitization software. They provide tamper resistant logs, audit-ready reports, and verification results.

We are able to create prebuilt workflows that wipe to an NIST 800-88 Purge level sanitization. If the device is not capable of this it fails. This allows us to know we should shred the data bearing device because it is not properly sanitized. We then recycle the shredded material. Don't hesitate to bring us shredded or drilled drives. We can recycle HDD's and SSD's in any condition.

There you have it, the basics as well as some nitty gritty details of data sanitization. If you need certified destruction reach out! We can use Blancco to wipe or our Formax Hard Drive Shredder to make sure your data is safe. And recycle the rest if needed!

Here is what you should do if you have data you are worried about

• Identify data sensitivity (low/moderate/high)
• Decide destination (reuse internally vs resale vs recycle)
• Choose sanitization level (clear/purge/destroy)
• Require verification + records
• If wipe fails → destroy

Need professional certified data destruction? Don't hesitate to reach out.

Casey