Tip

Comparison of various data destruction approaches

Critical requirements Digital Shredder: Secure Erase Commercial software Degaussing machine Mechanical destruction
Destroys data beyond forensic reconstruction Yes No

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Uncertain1		 Uncertain 4
Ensures Absolute care custody and control of the process Yes Yes Uncertain 2 No
Provides certification with a defendable audit trail Yes No No 3 No
Easy to install and implement Yes No No No
Reformat 7 reimage drive for potential reuse Yes Yes No No

1. Degaussing machines may not produce a strong enough magnetic field to destroy all of the data.

2. In many cases, degaussing is a third party process.

3. Since the degaussing process disables the hard drive, there is no way to test the process to ensure that the data is gone.

4. Depends on the extent to which the disks have been shredded.

Go back to Appliance-based digital shredding for data destruction.


















This was first published in January 2008

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