Seek-it - Data Deletion - Secure hard drive wiping

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Data Wiping

Although many similar organisations collect redundant ICT & office equipment, our WEEE management services are focused at organisations that demand security conscientious and reliable solutions.

Magnetic media such as hard drives, floppy disks, DAT, Zip, Videotapes, etc. may be recycled and reused, however data protection issues must come first.

As a rule, most workstation drives are suitable for overwriting and reuse. Generally, it is more secure to re-deploy surplus server hard drives (normally SCSI) within the same organisation or ensure they are totally destroyed.

Seek-it hard drive waste management solution

Conscientious disposal of hard drives can often prove expensive and time consuming. Aside from consuming internal resources, drive destruction and their subsequent disposal often requires the services of 3rd party companies.

Drive destruction is not environmentally friendly as no resources are reclaimed.

In order for hard drives to be reused safely, their entire content needs to be securely deleted. This deletion process is achieved by overwriting the data on the drive. The amount of overwrites per drive is dictated by the sensitivity of the original data.

Our solution guarantees high security and full compliance with the Data Protection Act, Software Piracy Act and WEEE directive on Waste management.

We supply operatives and equipment to securely wipe all hard drives on-site. Any drives that cannot be over-wiped due to physical errors or damage are placed through a *NATO and **SEAP approved Degausser. The Degausser has been approved by the UK Government and meets the specified requirements of SEAP (Security Equipment Assessment Panel) for the secure erasure and destruction of information and data stored on magnetic media up to TOP SECRET level.

The benefits of our solutions

High Security
On-site data wiping strengthens security procedures, as no drives leave an organisation with any data on them.

Effective & Ecological
Our solution ensures that only the hard drives that need to be destroyed are lost. If the drive controller card functions, it will be removed and reused, which means even less waste.

Cost effective
A destruction policy ensures that costs will generated. As our wipe process is non-destructive, drives may be reclaimed and then commercially reused.

Summary

The data on the workstation hard drives is generally not sensitive, although there is a small chance that some drives may contain some confidential information. The suggested course of action, according to the US Department of Defence DOD 5220.22-M is a 3 pass over-wipe with random binary patterns. This technique guarantees that no data can be recovered by either a member of the public or by a commercial enterprise.

Data recovery may be possible, however the equipment and technique is complex, hugely expensive and not available to outside government agencies. The possible information present on a workstation drive should never warrant this action.

The most obvious risk that most organisations face is that a drive may fall into the public domain without prior sanitising. The likely outcome would be that the new owner would simply format the drive and reuse it. However, a more inquisitive person may check the drive content and discover the operating system. If this event was reported in the media it could prove embarrassing.

*NATO Stock Number 5836-99-500-5299 (60Hz)

**SEAP (Security Equipment Assessment Panel) is an organisation of the Cabinet Office responsible for approving security equipment used to protect Government Assets. This standard was published in June 1997 to enable manufacturers to submit Degaussers against a defined requirement. It specifies the methods of testing and performance of degaussing equipment for use in the destruction of Government protectively marked information. Equipment is categorised as Type 2 (Higher) and Type 1 (Lower) according to the level of erasure they offer.