An organization is decommissioning several servers containing a mix of hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs). According to security policy, all data on the drives must be rendered completely unrecoverable before the drives are repurposed for a non-sensitive project. Which of the following processes BEST achieves this goal for both types of drives?
Sanitization is the process of permanently and irreversibly removing or destroying data on a storage device to make it unrecoverable. This is the correct overarching process that applies to both HDDs and SSDs, using methods like overwriting for HDDs and Secure Erase commands for SSDs. Degaussing uses a powerful magnetic field to destroy data, but it is only effective on magnetic media like HDDs and is not effective on SSDs. Encryption renders data unreadable without the key, but it does not remove the data; a separate process called cryptographic erase (destroying the key) is a form of sanitization, but 'encryption' alone is not the answer. Formatting a drive typically only removes pointers to the data, leaving the actual data recoverable with forensic tools, and is not a secure method of disposal.
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What is the difference between sanitization and degaussing?
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How does cryptographic erasure work as part of sanitization?
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Why is sanitization important for maintaining data confidentiality?