Data Wiping

Data is, in essence, information that has been translated and stored into a computing device in a way that is efficient for processing purposes. It encompasses a wide range of facts and figures; everything from employee information to a company’s detailed financials.

Needless to say, data is very important, and it needs to be protected throughout its entire lifespan. When you need to delete your company’s data, it is crucial that you treat the wiping process just as delicately as you when you create, store, and protect your data.

What Is Data Wiping?

Data wiping makes data unreadable, but it does not remove the data. Instead, data wiping is the process of overwriting the data on a particular hard drive to such an extent that the original data is unreadable. The benefit of data wiping, aside from protecting your company’s data, is that you can reuse the original hard drive. An easy way to think about data wiping is when a cook over-salts a dish. Instead of destroying the dish (your hard drive), the cook adds some starch (overwriting your data) to hide the salty taste (your old data). The end result is a delicious dish with an indistinguishable amount of salt. The salt is still there, but it’s buried.

Type of data erasure

Deleting data is not a panacea. There are many types that your business can benefit from. The most commonly used types include 1-pass overwrite, 3-pass overwrite, 7-pass overwrite, and secure erase. Each type involves a variety of almost self-explanatory processes. For example, a one-pass overwrite overwrites data once. Regulations such as HIPAA may require industry-specific data erasure specifications, so be sure to check what is required for the type of data you are erasing.

Benefits of erasing data

In short, Data Erasure is a great and inexpensive solution for removing unwanted data from your business without purchasing additional hard drives. The money you save can be reallocated to other parts of your organization, such as new software, increased marketing efforts, or year-end bonuses. Deletion of data should not be taken lightly. If you want to protect your data, hire an IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) company that adheres to NIST standards for hard drive data wiping procedures and can provide sanitization certificates issued by data security certifications such as R2 and e-Stewards. Please give me. This ensures that the company in question has safely disposed of all IT assets and that the data is not passed on to third parties.