Re: Equipment Disposition - Disk Drive "Sanitization"

["Niedens, Travis" <Travis_Niedens () REDLANDS EDU>]

I've been using this tool for some time and it is free:

http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Here's some info from their site:

Eraser is FREE software and its source code is released under GNU General
Public License.

The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Gutmann's paper "Secure
Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" and they are selected
to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive.

Other methods include the one defined in the National Industrial Security
Program Operating Manual of the US Department of Defence and overwriting
with pseudorandom data. You can also define your own overwriting methods.

Travis Niedens
Network Manager
University of Redlands 

-----Original Message-----
From: Sadler, Connie [mailto:Connie_Sadler () BROWN EDU] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 8:46 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: [SECURITY] Equipment Disposition - Disk Drive "Sanitization"

Can others share what they are doing with regard to ensuring that
information is properly overwritten before a computer is transferred or
disposed of?

We have an agreement with a third party to destroy all drives that are
disposed of - and we also have a form that is filled out when systems are
transferred or "gifted". But we need to tighten this up. I'd like each
department to take responsibility for this and sign off on the form in such
a way that they are accountable for information that gets past the process.
But there is pushback on this (surprise!).

Do others have processes that work well for them?

Thanks much...

Connie J. Sadler, CM, CISSP, CISM
Director, IT Security, Brown University
Box 1885, Providence, RI 02912
Connie_Sadler () Brown edu
PGP Fingerprint: 452A C178 1450 9CE1 3AC1  CC12 956F 2C55 DB94 A9C7
Office: 401-863-7266

**********
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Discussion
Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/cg/.

**********
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Discussion Group discussion list can be found at 
http://www.educause.edu/cg/.