Disk encryption has always been advised for mitigating incidental leakage of data, such as stolen laptops or thumb drives that go missing. But my understanding

Disk encryption has always been advised for mitigating incidental leakage of data, such as stolen laptops or thumb drives that go missing. But my understanding, both as an industry standard and as common sense (insofar as common as computer literacy is), is that the only true way to ensure data destruction is total physical destruction of the physical medium the data resides on.