3 ms·
Is secure erase reliable? If so, how can you say the intent of the encryption isn't security?
by neodymiumphish 3y ago
Is secure erase reliable? If so, how can you say the intent of the encryption isn't security?
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y agoSecure erase via sledgehammer is pretty reliable.
- supertrope 3y agoIt depends on your threat model. Just enabling BitLocker will defeat someone from plugging in a Linux live USB and resetting your Windows password. For corporate security ATA Secure Erase done by a vendor who accepts liability and gives them a "certificate of data destruction" may be enough to meet HIPAA, FERPA, SOX compliance requirements. Or they consider drives cheap enough that physically shredding them to ensure no mistakes is the better choice. At the national security level you pulverize the drives after zeroing them, likely in a windowless room inside a facility with armed guards.
- neodymiumphish 3y agoAs one who's actually had the pleasure of getting to use one of the classified drive destroyers, there aren't armed guards. Not sure if there's a requirement that it be done in a room with no windows, though. My point was that Kenny's claim is that on-drive encryption allows for easier "erasure", presumably by deleting the keys needed to decrypt the data and leaving the drive in the same state. If that process is good enough to ensure proper "erasure" of the data (effectively complete prevention of data access), then how is it not equally secure as an encryption schema?