Security Basics mailing list archives

Re: Advice regarding servers and Wiping Drives after testing


From: Ansgar -59cobalt- Wiechers <bugtraq () planetcobalt net>
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:33:20 +0200

On 2007-09-13 Steve Olive wrote:
On Wed, 5 Sep 2007 04:03:17 am Ansgar -59cobalt- Wiechers wrote:
On 2007-09-01 gjgowey () tmo blackberry net wrote:
A since pass with all zero's really won't protect your data from
being recovered by more advanced data recovery software let alone
alone hardware.

I'd like to see a single case where someone was able to recover data
from an overwritten harddisk, even after a single pass with zeroes.

Multiple passes isn't much better, but if that's all you got...

You would be better off looking at better utilities if you really
need to keep the data from being recovered.

Nonsense. If you're worried about the zeroes just replace /dev/zero
with /dev/urandom. Your "better utilites" don't work any different
from that.

I'd say it is very possible, otherwise organisations would not be
offering these services, with "No Fix, No Fee Policies", at confirmed
prices. There are a number of testimonials from existing customers:

http://www.payam.com.au/hard-disk-data-recovery.htm

If this is possible in Australia, I'm sure that the rest of the world
has access to similar organisations ;-)

You're mistaken. Of course recovery is perfectly possible for data that
was just deleted. However, we are talking about data that was not just
deleted, but overwritten with zeroes or random data. That's a totally
different story.

Regards
Ansgar Wiechers
-- 
"All vulnerabilities deserve a public fear period prior to patches
becoming available."
--Jason Coombs on Bugtraq


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