Several standards exist for secure data/media sanitization, but the most commonly cited standards are NIST SP 800-88.  Published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), SP 800-88 defines processes for destroying data on hard disk drives (HDDs) and...

Degaussing is a data sanitization procedure that destroys data by applying powerful magnetic fields. Here’s how the process works.

No, magnets will not damage solid-state drives. However, changes in magnetic fields might cause data loss under certain circumstances. Strong magnetic fields can destroy data on hard disk drives (HDDs) and data tapes, for a simple reason: Those devices use...

I recently was asked to contribute to a discussion on the IT social community of Spiceworks. It started out as a question about disk formatting utilities, but by the end of the discussion, users were trying to determine what the...