[nflug] Wiping hard drive sensitive personal data

Brad Bartram brad.bartram at gmail.com
Thu Jul 20 09:56:44 EDT 2006


As with everything, it comes down to a cost / benefit analysis.  What is the
maximum amount that data is worth in comparison to the price it would cost
to recover?  Is it worth enough to have a specific data recovery company, or
well equipped independent take a serious interest in it?  Is it somthing
that the government would be interested in tracking down as part of an
anti-terrorism investigation where the budget goes beyond what we have as
mere mortals?

The ultimate question comes down to the disposition of the drive once you're
done.  If you are trying to reuse the drive after securely removing the
data, then appropriate measures of data destruction should be taken.
Example, if the systems will be redeployed internally within the same
organization and at the same level of confidentiality, then use whatever
methods you are most comfortable.  If the systems are to be wiped and
redeployed to a level of lesser trust, then use a stronger wipe.  If the
system is going to be taken completely out of service, then depending on the
data whether it be customer information or trade secrets or whatever, you
have to decide whether to wipe the drive and hope for the best or destroy
the drive safely.

The only way to be certain that the data on a hard drive is truly wiped is
to disassemble the drive, chisel the coating from the platters, remove the
controller from the drive, and burn the case, platters, platter dust, and
controllers in seperate incinerators.  But then that just gets a little
paranoid.  Then again, never underestimate the abilities of well funded
organizations to recover data, even when you think it's destroyed.

brad

On 7/20/06, Darin Perusich <Darin.Perusich at cognigencorp.com> wrote:
>
> i believe it depends on the type of wiping method you use. if you use
> the Canadian RCPM and American DoD standard methods the data is pertty
> much irrecoverable.
>
> eric wrote:
> > Can Sleuth Kit recover data after using one or many of the methods DBAN
> > has to offer?
> >
>
> --
> Darin Perusich
> Unix Systems Administrator
> Cognigen Corporation
> 395 Youngs Rd.
> Williamsville, NY 14221
> darinper at cognigencorp.com
> _______________________________________________
> nflug mailing list
> nflug at nflug.org
> http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug
>
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