Security Basics mailing list archives
Re: Hard Drive data security
From: Alessandro Bottonelli <a.bottonelli () axis-net it>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 15:22:18 +0200
On Friday 01 October 2004 04:17, Leong Kok Wah Kenneth wrote:
But questions are - 1. where do we get 'free' disk wiping program from the net?
Google for "bcwipe" for Microsoft environments. Many Unix flavours come shipped with the "shred" utility. Or you can overwrite data with other standard utilitues as already mentioned in the thread.
2. what assurance that it will do a good job using the 'free' disk wiping program as they are compared commerical licensed ones?
Unless you have a well geared lab for actual testing, you'll have to rely on others' testing. Personally, I'd trust more a free utilty that maybe comes with sources that I can analyze, rather than a commercial utility. But that's me. Much also depends on the value of the data you want to shred vs. the motivation and the tools for recovery of your "adversary" (whoever he/she happens to be). If returning a drive with low to mid-level classified data on it to the manufacturer is the concern, then I would simply degauss the drive with a strong magnet. I doubt a technician who is paid for refurbishing the disk has motive, opportunity and means to scan it with sophisticated devices. If the drive contained high level classified data and I were concerned that some "agency" (with motivation and tools) may be interested in them, then probably I would trust no wiping tools and I would simply pay the extra price for not returning the drive to the manufacturer and take care personally of destroying physically the drive before disposing of it. Many gray-scale scenarios may lay in between those to extremes. My 2 Eurocents worth :-) -- Alessandro Bottonelli AXIS-NET Provacy & InfoSec Consulting http://www.axis-net.it http://www.axamonline.net
Current thread:
- RE: Hard Drive data security, (continued)
- RE: Hard Drive data security adisegna (Sep 30)
- RE: Hard Drive data security Dan Wozniak (Sep 30)
- Re: Hard Drive data security Herman F . Ebeling Jr . (Sep 30)
- Re: Hard Drive data security creative (Sep 30)
- Re: Hard Drive data security Gethin Jones (Oct 04)
- RE: Hard Drive data security Leong Kok Wah Kenneth (Oct 01)
- Re: Hard Drive data security creative (Oct 04)
- Re: Hard Drive data security Andrew Prince (Oct 04)
- Re: Hard Drive data security David Pires (Oct 04)
- RE: Hard Drive data security Leong Kok Wah Kenneth (Oct 01)
- Re: Hard Drive data security Alessandro Bottonelli (Oct 04)
- Re: Hard Drive data security Atom 'Smasher' (Oct 04)
- Re: Hard Drive data security J. Theriault (Oct 04)
- Re: Hard Drive data security Alessandro Bottonelli (Oct 04)
- Re: Hard Drive data security creative (Oct 04)
- Re: Hard Drive data security xyberpix (Oct 04)
- RE: Hard Drive data security Kristján Hreinn Bergsson (Oct 05)
- RE: Hard Drive data security xyberpix (Oct 05)
- Re: Hard Drive data security Ansgar -59cobalt- Wiechers (Oct 06)
- Re: Hard Drive data security Atom 'Smasher' (Oct 07)
- RE: Hard Drive data security xyberpix (Oct 05)
- Auditing a Win2K box xyberpix (Oct 07)
- Re: Auditing a Win2K box Marco Bellini (Oct 07)