Re: Degausser

[Anthony Phillips <anthony () KSU EDU>]

In a previous incarnation I used a radial arm saw with a carbide blade.  You
could clamp a number of like sized drives together, line them up and run one
pass right along the spindles, severing every track on every platter.  This
technique requires a controlled environment since you will get lots of
sparks and metal fragments and from laptop drives lots of glass dust/shards.
We are now trying to be a little more sophisticated with some combination of
degaussing & shredding.  To that end we have looked at a combination of a
Garner HD-3WXL degausser (~$7K) plus an Amerishred AMS-150HD shredder
(~$15K), but are leaning toward a Garner HDTD-8800 degausser (~$25K) instead
due to the large drawer being able to accommodate other media like tapes,
etc.  I still strongly recommend either degaussing followed immediately by
physical destruction for the ease of verifying mentioned earlier, or more
complete destruction than is obtainable with a drill press.  I know we
probably don't have anything that anyone is going to invest the time and
money required to recover from that level of destruction, but if you can say
(and verify to an auditor) "Everything is shredded to specification X" it
can potentially keep you out of a lot of hot water down the road.

 

Anthony Phillips

Computer Security Analyst

Kansas State University

785-532-3341

anthony () ksu edu

 

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From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv
[mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Greg Schaffer
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 1:08 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: [SECURITY] Degausser

 

Greetings everyone,

 

I am looking for a decent hard drive degausser/destroyer.  Does anyone have
any suggestions/recommendations?

 

Thanks,

Greg

 

Greg Schaffer, CISSP

Assistant Vice President

Network and Information Technology Security

Middle Tennessee State University

615 898-5753

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