Data Destruction

 

	Pros	Cons
Overwriting	Can be done remotely Enables reuse of a hard drive Less expensive than physical destruction or degaussing for a small number of drives DOD Offers compliancestandards	Time Consuming Data still vulnerable to forensic recovery Can require licensing per hard drive
Cryptographic Sanitation	Effective, fast and simple to administer Can be done remotely Hard drive can be reused	For disk encrypted data only
Degaussing	Suitable for floppy disks and backup tapes	Equipment is costly Magnets may not penetrate more recent, highly dense drives Unusable and unverifiable Can damage nearby equipment Only disables the drive Data may be retreivable No validation of data destruction Not usable for solid state and flash media because of high coercivity
Secure Erase	Data destroyed beyond forensic reconstruction Enables reuse of hard drive No remote access for advanced data securty Scalable for onsirte chain of custody automated audit log and certificate of destruction Standards basedon and compliant to new data disposition regulations Requires no capital investment	takes 30-40 minutes per drive Currently available for: Laptops Desktpops Copy machines Some medical devices
Manual Shredding	Fast and effective Can reuse/resell subassemblies Can be inexpensive, depending up on transport distance	Requires transport to a shredder, or bringing a shredder onsite Prevents reuse of the hard drive Hard drives contain heavy metals and other hazardous waste Concerns: Particle size Value of data