Testing Data Sanitization Practices of Retired Drives with The Digital Forensics Data Recovery Project

Ashley L. Podhradsky and Kevin Streff

Journal of Information Privacy and Security, 2011, vol. 7, issue 3, 46-63

Abstract: There are several empirical studies that have focused on the analysis of retired digital media on the secondary market. Gutmann highlighted data remanence in semiconductor devices, specifically disk drives, Garfinkel and Shelat, researchers from MIT conducted a study, “Remembrance of Data Passed: A Study of Disk Sanitization Practices, “ and Jones, et al have an ongoing research project initiated in 200. In the research studies listed above, they all identified sanitization issues with used media. All of their research had a historical impact on not only the technology community but the business community alike.This research paper is focused on taking data remanence a step further to analyze residual data on sanitized media within the secondary market. Prior research was analyzing any discarded media, this research aims to acquire drives in which due diligence has been taken to ensure data privacy. The specific research question this research will address is how effective is current data sanitization practices within key, regulated industries. Furthermore, if residual data is found, is there enough data available to comprise an identity. The researchers theorize that current practices are ineffective and private data of innocent individuals is being comprised.This research will introduce the Digital Forensics Recovery (DFDR) study, where five key industries-government, education, businesses, electronic recycle centers, and individual home users were targeted to test effectiveness of data sanitization practices with used media. This paper will report the case study findings while outlining future work for the study. Furthermore, this study seeks to bring the issue of liability and ownership of discarded data to light.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1080/15536548.2011.10855917

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