Data Security >

How do we remove your data ?

Simply Reformatting or Damaging a Hard Drive is not enough to remove your data permanently from the drive, and the data is still easily recoverable.

IT Recycla offers a number of ways to destroy data from your devices, each with their own inherent advantages and disadvantages. Which method is best for you depends on the type and age of your technology, and your relative “risk appetite”.

The following briefly describes the different techniques we use to securely destroy sensitive data, including the relative advantages and disadvantages of each:

Secure Data
Optical Destroyer
ITRECYCLA YouWipe Data Erasure Software

1. Data Erasure

Data erasure is the process of using specially designed software to overwrite the entire drive / device with pseudo-random “1’s and 0’s, often multiple times, thus eliminating anything meaningful that may have been present.

ITRECYCLA utilizes both hardware and software as appropriate to efficiently and securely erase data from wide range of technologies and devices. Our solutions comply with all major security standards including: US Department of Defence 5220.22M (3-pass), US Department of Defence 5220.22M (7-pass), US NIST 800-88, United Kingdom CESG “Certified” erasing standards Baseline and Enhanced.

Where the erasure process of any drives or devices fails to validate for any reason, it is ITRECYCLA’s policy to remove and shred it.

Advantages of erasure:

Data erasure is a good option where you may wish to see the drive or device re-used by someone else after you’ve finished with it yourself, or if you want to re-deploy it elsewhere.

Disadvantages of erasure:

  • Time consuming with erasure of large capacity drives taking several hours to complete
  • If any part of the disk or device cannot be addressed by the erasure software (eg bad disk sector / unknown device architecture) then the erasure will be ineffective / unsuccessful.
  • There are some questions around the efficacy of erasure for devices that use flash memory to buffer & store data.

Please see data erasure software for more information on the data erasure solutions we use.

2. Disk Degaussing

A simple method for securely destroying all data from your Hard Drive or Tape is degaussing. Our Degausser releases a large electrical pulse over your Hard Drive or Data Tape, destroying and sanitizing ALL data at a magnetic level.  It is so powerful, that hard drives usually don’t even spin up after being degaussed.

Our degausser has been independently tested and certified to meet the most stringent security standards including ANSI, CE, PCI-DSS, NIST, HIPPA and many others.

Advantages of degaussing:

  • Degaussing is very fast, taking around 20 – 30 seconds per drive
  • Cost effective
  • Can be performed onsite

Disadvantages

Whilst degaussing is 100% effective on magnetic storage media such as hard disk drives & tapes, it is not effective on flash memory technologies found in solid state drives (SSD’s), hybrid drives or thumb drives.

Data Destruction
ITRECYCLA Disk Degausser
Data Destruction
ITRECYCLA Drive Shredder

3. Drive Shredding

ITRECYCLA can also shred your drives (or devices) turning them into small metal/plastic fragments.

Advantages:

  • Simple and cost effective

Disadvantages

  • Whilst standard shredding completely destroys the drive making it impossible to reconstruct, the data will still remain on the fragments of the disk platters, and so could theoretically be recovered.
  • Comparatively large fragment size may mean flash memory chips are still intact and theoretically readable

4. 6mm & 3mm Disintegration (NZISM Compliant)

ITRECYCLA has recently upgraded  their data destruction arsenal to include device disintegration down to 6mm or even 3mm fragments as required by the New Zealand Information Security Manual.

This is backed up by a secure locked quarantine area and comprehensive  procedures

Advantages

  • NZISM compliant
  • Effective on all technologies
  • Virtually impossible to recover / reconstruct any data

Disadvantages

  • Requires very expensive & high maintenance equipment, and consequently, there are very few organisations with necessary capability
  • More expensive than other options

Please click here for more information on our 6mm & 3mm NZISM Compliant solution.

Optical Destroyer
6mm & 3mm Disintegration

Data Destruction On-Site

Some customers want absolute assurance and validation that any data residing on their end-of-life hardware is completely erased prior to leaving their facilities. In these cases, a fully trained ITRECYCLA Data Destruction Technician can be sent on-site to perform degaussing services at your office or facility.

This service has proven popular with government departments and organizations such as banks whose data must remain private and secure and is subject to regulatory compliance.

Our Technician will travel to your facility and, while in your presence, remove the Hard Drives, Degauss them and pack them for transport to our facility for recycling.

Our portable degaussing equipment has built in safeguards that measure the strength of the magnetic field before each erasure cycle ensuring that it is strong enough to remove ALL magnetic patterns from the media. This is measured on an independant circuit.

As well as our On-Site Service we offer a Free Pick-Up Service or a Mail-In/Courier-In Services. Certificates of Destruction can be issued for all Destroyed Data Bearing Devices by request.

Contact Us for more information or a confidential quote for your Data Destruction needs. Request a FREE, Confidential Quote NOW

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