L19 - T19C - S6 – Disposal and Recycling Outsourcing Concepts

Physical Destruction

Using drilling, shredding, incineration, or degaussing of storage media before recycling or repurposing to minimize the risk of leaving persistent data remnants – (A+)

• Appropriate if media device is not being repurposed or recycled

The 3 ways to physically destroy a disk

• Shredding

• Incinerating

• Degaussing

  • Does not work with SSDs or Optical Media

Certificate of Destruction

Validation from an outsourcing provider of recycling/repurposing services that media has been destroyed or sanitized to the agreed standard – (A+)

• Typically provided by 3rd party vendors

• Should show

  • Make | Model | Serial number | of each drive that has been destroyed

  • Date of destruction | Method of destruction

Certificate of Recycling

• May be provided by a 3rd party company which used overwriting or crypto-erase rather than physically destroying the drive and providing a certificate of destruction

Using a Drill or Hammer for disk destruction — Related Points

• This method is not appropriate for the most highly confidential data

  • There is at least some risk of leaving fragments that could be analysed using specialist tools

• Ensure you wear protective goggles