2.8 - Data Destruction Flashcards
1
Q
Physical destruction
A
- Shredder
– Heavy machinery - complete destruction - Drill / Hammer
– Quick and easy - Platters, all the way through - Electromagnetic (degaussing)
– Remove the magnetic field
– Destroys the drive data and the electronics - Incineration - Fire hot.
2
Q
Certificate of destruction
A
- Destruction is often done by a 3rd party
– How many drills and degaussers do you have? - Need confirmation that your data is destroyed
– Service should include a certificate - A paper trail of broken data
– You know exactly what happened
3
Q
Disk formatting
A
- Low-level formatting
– Provided at the factory
– Not recommended for the user - Standard formatting / Quick format
– Sets up the file system, installs a boot sector
– Clears the master file table but not the data
– Can be recovered with the right software - Standard formatting / Regular format
– Overwrites every sector with zeros
– Default for Windows Vista and later
– Can’t recover the data
4
Q
Erasing data
A
- File level overwriting
– Sdelete – Windows Sysinternals
– Remaining files are still available - Whole drive wipe secure data removal
– DBAN - Darik’s Boot and Nuke
– Removes all data on the drive
– Use the drive again - Physical drive destruction
– One-off or industrial removal and destroy
– Drive is no longer usable
5
Q
Hard drive security
A
- 2019 study from Blancco and Ontrack
– 159 storage drives from eBay
– 42% of the used drives contain sensitive data - Different data types
– 66 drives had data, 25 drives with PII - Varied data sources
– Travel company email archive
– Freight company shipping details
– University student papers
– Audio, video, and other personal files