Data Destruction for Current Hard Disks

Destruction Of Original Data Stored On Hard Disk Using Logical Techniques

Unauthorized access to confidential data is a continuous concern of users throughout computing history, due to the value assigned to the data. Data stored on hard drives used on computers always contains data from users, clients, and more. Most users believe the file removal commands completely erase the contents of the device. However, depending on the file system used in the operating system, only the logical address of the file stored in the allocation table is overwritten with new metadata and the file with the original data is still stored on the hard disk.

Due to this fact, any users with access to this hard disk may try to recover this stored data, generating concerns to its owners. There are programs designed to recover data when they have not yet been physically removed from hard disk, such as Recuva, causing more concern to users regarding the security of their data. One way to avoid this kind of data recovery attack is by applying a data destruction technique on the hard disk. Data sanitization may be performed by physical techniques, where the disk is physically destroyed, or by means of logical techniques, where the original data is overwritten with new data, so that the final binary string of the operation is the most different from the original binary string of the data.

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