Gold Standard for Data Erasure NIST 800-88 is the globally recognized guideline for making data on HDDs, SSDs, mobile devices, and other storage media completely unrecoverable. It helps protect enterprises from breaches, fines, and reputational damage.
Three Sanitization Levels. It defines Clear, Purge, and Destroy methods, each suited to different data sensitivity levels, with rigorous verification requirements to ensure no residual data remains.
Verification and Certification. NIST compliance requires proof, including audit-ready certificates with device details, methods used, and verification results. This is critical for industries like healthcare, finance, and government.
Environmental and Operational Benefits. When paired with Clear or Purge, organizations can securely reuse, donate, or resell devices, cutting e-waste and supporting ESG commitments while staying compliant.
How Workwize Helps. Workwize uses NIST 800-88 compliant erasure workflows into enterprise IT asset offboarding, ensuring every decommissioned device is securely sanitized, verified, and documented. This streamlines compliance and reduces risk across global operations.
When a hard drive, SSD, or mobile device reaches the end of its useful life, what happens to the data stored on it?
For enterprises, this question is more than operational—it’s a matter of security, compliance, and reputation. The wrong answer can lead to regulatory fines, brand damage, and exposure of sensitive information.
This is where NIST 800-88, the U.S. government’s gold-standard guideline for media sanitization, comes in. Published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST 800-88 offers a clear, adaptable framework for rendering data irretrievable, whether the media in question is an old server drive, a stack of USB sticks, or a cloud storage migration backup.
For organizations navigating tight compliance mandates and stringent cybersecurity standards, understanding and applying NIST 800-88 is no longer optional. It’s a critical safeguard against data breaches in an era where attackers will happily sift through discarded hardware to find their next opportunity.
NIST 800-88, officially titled “Guidelines for Media Sanitization,” was first released in 2006 and updated to Revision 1 in 2014. Its purpose is straightforward: to provide methodical, technology-agnostic instructions for erasing data from any type of electronic storage media.
While it originated in U.S. federal government operations, its adoption has spread worldwide. It’s now the benchmark for private sector data destruction, surpassing older standards like DoD 5220.22-M, which hasn’t kept pace with modern storage technologies such as SSDs.
The scope of NIST 800-88 is intentionally broad. It applies to:
Magnetic storage (HDDs, tapes)
Solid-state drives (SSDs)
Flash media (USB drives, SD cards)
Mobile devices
Data center storage systems
Any future storage technology that may emerge
Its reach even extends to international frameworks, with principles incorporated into standards like ISO/IEC 27040:2015. This universality makes it the de facto global playbook for secure media sanitization.