Data Destruction How to Erase your Hard Drives

Data Destruction How to Erase your Hard Drive’s so that there is no data leakage from your company and so that your company and officers won’t be held financially responsible. By: Lloyd Albin 3/9/2010

How this all got started. • Needing to get rid of more than 3 truck loads of computers (major computer pack rat). • Known Methods: – Re-Formatting – Re-Partitioning – Overwriting multiple times – Degaussing – Opening and breaking the platters – Cooking in oven

Do. D Sanitization Methods Method Security Level Description Clear Low – Reused in House Moderate – Reuse In House Software Overwrite Purge Low – Reused out of House Moderate – Reuse out of House High – Reuse in House Degaussing or using firmware Secure Erase Destroy Moderate – Reuse No High – Reuse No or Reuse out of House Disintegration, Pulverization, Melting, Incineration (Hard media like hard drives, memory sticks, etc. ) Shredding (Flexible media like Floppy Disc’s) Reduced to nominal edge dimensions of 5 mm and surface area of 25 mm

Clearing Standards Method Times of Overwrite Lab US Do. D 5220. 22 -M 3 (0 x 00, 0 x. FF, Random) Low US Do. D 5220. 22 -M (ECE) 7 (0 x 00, 0 x. FF, Ran, V-Rand) Medium German VSITR 7 (0 x 00, 0 x. FF, 0 x. AA) Low Russian GOST p 50739 -95 2 (0 x 00, Random) Canadian OPS-II 7 (0 x 00, 0 x. FF, Rand) Medium HMG IS 5 Baseline 1 (0 x 00) Low HMG IS 5 Enhanced 3 (0 x 00, 0 x. FF, Random) Low US Army AR 380 -10 3 (Random, 0 x 00, 0 x. FF) Low US Airforce 5020 3 (0 x. FF, 0 x 00, Random) Low Navso p-5329 -26 RL (Navy) 3 (0 x 01, 0 x 27 FFFFFF, Random) Low Navso P-5329 -26 MFM (Navy) 3 (0 x 00, 0 x 7 FFFFFFF, Random) Low NCSC-TG-025 3 (0 x 00, 0 x. FF, Random) Low Bruce Schneier 7 (0 x. FF, 0 x 00, 5 Random) Medium Roy Pfitzner 33 (33 Random) V-High Peter Gutmann 35 (4 Random, 26 specials, 5 Random) V-High Low

Cleaning Software – Block Erase • Darik’s Boot and Nuke http: //www. dban. org/ • Eraser http: //eraser. heidi. ie/ • Active Kill. Disk http: //www. killdisk. com/ • File Shredder http: //www. fileshredder. org/ • Paragon Disk Wiper Professional http: //www. disk-wiper. com/

Purging Standards Method Times of Overwrite Lab Secure Erase (ATA-6) 1 (Binary zeros or binary ones) Secure erase does a single on-track erasure of the data on the disk drive, after technical testing at CMRR showed that multiple on-track overwrite passes gave no additional erasure. High Enhanced Secure Erase 1 (4 byte Vendor Pattern) (ATA-6 Optional) High Sanitize Device (ATA-8 Optional) Settable + Encryption Key Change AES 128 -bit (256 -bit not possible due to US Export laws) V-High Degaussing Wand – Low Power – Class I (Not effective on current hard drives. ) Less than 350 Oe coercivity Degaussing Wand – High Power – Class II (Must open up hard drive and use directly on the platters) 350 -750 Oe coercivity Degaussing – Very High (No known device) Power – Class III Over 750 Oe coercivity V-High

Purging Software – Secure Erase • CCMR Secure Erase (HDDErase) http: //cmrr. ucsd. edu/people/Hughes/Secure. E rase. shtml • Hddparm http: //sourceforge. net/projects/hdparm/ http: //hdparm-win 32. dyndns. org/hdparm/

What does Secure Erase do? • • • Security Set Password (F 1 h) Security Freeze Lock (F 5 h) Security Erase Prepare (F 3 h) Security Erase Unit (F 4 h) Security Unlock (F 2 h) Security Disable Password (F 6 h)

What does Sanitize Device do? • • • Sanitize Freeze Lock Ext (20 h) Sanitize Prepare (FFh) * Sanitize Status Ext (0 h) Crypto Scramble Ext (11 h) Block Erase Ext (12 h) Overwrite Ext (14 h)

Crushing and Shredding

844 grams of Thermite Destruction

References • http: //cmrr. ucsd. edu/people/Hughes/Cmrr. Secure. Erase. Protocols. pdf • Peter Gutmann http: //www. cs. auckland. ac. nz/~pgut 001/pubs/secure_del. html • NIST 800 -88 http: //csrc. nist. gov/publications/nistpubs/800 -88/NISTSP 800 -88_rev 1. pdf • http: //mareichelt. de/pub/notmine/sanitizing. html • http: //www. t 13. org/Documents/Uploaded. Documents/docs 2009/d 2015 r 2 -ATAATAPI_Command_Set_-_2_ACS-2. pdf • http: //ata. wiki. kernel. org/index. php/ATA_Secure_Erase • http: //www. t 13. org/Documents/Uploaded. Documents/docs 2008/e 07197 r 1 -T 13_Sanitize_Command_Proposal_Overview. pdf • Overwriting Hard Drive Data: The Great Wiping Controversy http: //www. springerlink. com/content/408263 ql 11460147/ • http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/AT_Attachment • http: //www. killdisk. com/downloads/Kill. Disk_Win 5. pdf • http: //www. seagate. com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/notebook/mo mentus/5400. 6%20(Wyatt)/100528359 e. pdf • http: //www. redbooks. ibm. com/technotes/tips 0761. pdf • http: //www. h-online. com/newsticker/news/item/Secure-deletion-a-single -overwrite-will-do-it-739699. html