Techniques for Data Sanitization

To achieve data sanitization, there are four primary approaches: physical destruction, data erasure, cryptographic erasure, and data masking.

1. Storage device
2. Data Masking
3. Cryptographic Erasure
4. Destroy/Degauss

Physical obliteration

Storage media can be destroyed using two main methods:

• Industrial shredders are employed to fragment the device into smaller parts.
• Degaussers subject the device to a powerful magnetic field, permanently erasing data on HDDs and tapes.

Data Erasure

• Utilizes software to overwrite all sectors of storage equipment with random 0s and 1s
• Provides reliable sanitization by ensuring complete replacement of data at the byte level
• Allows for auditable reports to prove successful data sanitization, preserving device for resale or reuse

Cryptographic Erasure

• Public-key cryptography with a strong key is used to encrypt all data on the device, making it unreadable without the key.
• Encryption is a reliable method for sanitizing storage devices, especially for sensitive information or portable storage.
• Cryptographic erasure may not always meet regulatory standards and can be vulnerable to user errors, key management issues, or malicious actors.

Data Masking

Sanitization is a highly effective method of data masking. It ensures that data on the device is sanitized while it is being used, providing key advantages over other techniques:

• Easy and fast implementation process.
• Meets various regulations and standards.
• Can be continuously applied to current data.

Data Discovery and Sanitization

Identifying the data that exists within an organization, across multiple data sources, and providing a comprehensive view of the organization’s data assets is the essence of data discovery. This process involves three main activities:

• Data sources are identified and combined to form a comprehensive view.
• Interactive visualizations are created to facilitate data exploration.
• Different data sources are merged to generate innovative and valuable datasets.

admin