Summary: In today's digitally connected world, the importance of data destruction is paramount. Businesses should understand data destruction, its methods, and how to use data destruction software effectively to stay compliant with international laws and regulations thereby protecting confidential and sensitive information. Read on to learn about data destruction software, its benefits, and the best tool available in the industry.
Data destruction is a term increasingly used in today's
modern technological world. Just like we value our physical possessions, today
data in the form of information is equally valued and possessed by all,
consumers or business owners, whether privately or publicly run. It is critical
for a business to see how data is destructed when the media changes hands or is
disposed of.
According to BBC, "Millions
of storage devices are being shredded each year, even though they could be
reused." Using professional data erasure software for destroying
data boosts a circular economy and promotes sustainability by reusing the
device rather than physically destroying them.
What is Data Destruction Software?
Data Destruction
software is used for permanently destroying data (erasing) from a storage
device such as a hard drive, SSD, flash drive, mobile devices based on iOS
& Android, etc. making it unrecoverable. Data destruction software uses
overwriting techniques to wipe clean drives and devices and is sometimes
referred to as data wiping, data sanitization, or data erasure software.
Different methods to overwrite the data are defined by international bodies
such as NIST, DoD, NCSC, and others to ensure proper data erasure guidelines
are followed based on the media type. You may read about the best data erasure
standard in our article
Global data protection laws
like GDPR, CCPA, PDPA (Singapore), PDPA (Philippines), PIPEDA, and POPIA
regulate data collection, processing, storage, handling, disposal, and how it
is shared by data processors & data collectors. Therefore, organizations
must carefully frame their data destruction policy and define
the data destruction software to be used organization-wide while disposing the
end-of-life IT assets or while repurposing or reallocating them. It is
important to carefully assess the software capabilities in terms of
functionality, scalability, erasure standards supported, certificate of
destruction produced, and, verification methods supported. Let's look at some
of the benefits of data destruction software.
Benefits of Data Destruction Software:
Data destruction
software has numerous benefits that can be leveraged by organizations to
protect their sensitive and confidential information. The major benefits of
using data destruction software are listed below:
- Helps Maintain Compliance: Permanent data erasure helps organizations fulfill the data disposal mandates of global data protection and privacy regulations ensuring compliance.
- Avoiding Data Security Breaches: Removing redundant, obsolete, and trivial data reduces the attack vectors that can be exploited by cybercriminals for launching an attack and avoiding data security breaches.
- Avoiding Penalties: Any unintentional violation by the organization can lead to massive penalties. For Example, any GDPR infringement can result in fines of up to Euro 20 million or up to 4% of the global turnover, whichever is higher.
- Build Trust: Having a data destruction policy helps organizations showcase their commitment to responsible data management practices which helps them gain the trust of their employees, customers, investors as well as other stakeholders.
- Helps Save Cost: Data erasure promotes recycle and reuse of devices and helps contribute to reduced operational costs and resource conservation.
- Helps Meet ESG Goals: Physically destroyed devices end up in landfills and contribute to land, air, and water pollution. Data erasure software on the other hand is a proponent of the 'Zero Landfill' movement because the wiped device is recyclable and reusable thus, helping organizations meet ESG goals.
Features of a Professional Data Destruction Software:
The
following are some of the key features of an effective data erasure software
for securely wiping data
- Secure & Complete Data Removal: Data destruction software must securely and completely erase data from storage media making it impossible to recover even in a data recovery laboratory setting.
- Support for Multiple Drive & Device Types: Organizations store data on a multitude of storage media like HDDs, SSDs, USBs, servers, tape drives, etc. A robust data wiping software must support erasure from a wide range of devices.
- Generates Certificate of Destruction (COD): A professional data wiping software must generate data destruction certificates and erasure reports containing details of the erased device, the erasure method used, the verification technique applied, and information about the data wiping technician. These certificates must be available electronically for anytime anywhere access. These are vital for meeting the compliance requirements of regulations like SOX, GLBA, HIPAA, FACTA, etc.
- Provides Scalability & Automation: A data erasure software must offer flexibility to technicians to automate and deploy it over a network or use it on a standalone device. BitRaser is one such solution from Stellar that allows erasing 65,000 drives over a network using Admin Console or through the Network Cloud variant. To know more about the BitRaser Drive Eraser variants, you can read our article.
- Integration with Asset Management Applications: Organizations use asset management tools for tracking their IT inventory. A seamless integration of data destruction software with asset management tools ensures that data-wiping records are stored at the same location.
Recommended Data Erasure Tool:
BitRaser data erasure software helps erase data securely from all drives and devices and is a highly recommended data destruction tool for enterprises, governments, ITADs, and service providers. It has all the features of professional data destruction software and helps in meeting compliance with data protection laws & regulations.
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