Data Wiping 101: Benefits, Methods, Considerations, And More

In April 2021, HealthReach Community Health Centers in Waterville, Maine, notified over 100,000 patients that their data had been compromised. An employee at a third-party data storage facility improperly disposed of hard drives, exposing patients’ Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Personal Healthcare Information (PHI).

Such breaches highlight the urgent need to take data wiping seriously—beyond just clicking the “delete button” or formatting a hard drive.

This article is for you if you’re all about 100% secure and irrecoverable data wiping. We cover the basics of data wiping, foolproof methods of data erasure, and much more. 

Read on.

TL;DR

• Data wiping permanently erases sensitive information and protects your organization from breaches and residual data threats.

• Data wiping is also needed for compliance; proper data wiping standards are necessary to meet GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA guidelines.

• Securely wiped devices can be reused, resold, or recycled responsibly to reduce e-waste.

• Multiple data wiping techniques, including overwriting, degaussing, cryptographic erasure, and physical destruction, are used depending on the storage media.

• Some common mistakes in the destruction process include relying on inadequate wiping techniques, skipping documentation, and neglecting non-traditional storage devices like IoT systems.

• Workwize, Blancco Drive Eraser, DBAN, and KillDisk are some platforms you can consider for data wiping.