PURGING

On February 28, 2006, the DoD reissued the 5220.22M regulations. In section, 8-301, it states that "Instructions on clearing, sanitation and release of IS media shall be issued by the accrediting CSA." This means that there is no longer an overriding DoD regulation.

After the new DoD directives, the agencies turned to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) which has statutory responsibilities under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002, Public Law 107-347. Their responsibilities include developing technical, physical, administrative, and management standards for cost effective security and privacy of sensitive information.

In September 2006, NIST released their updated Guidelines for Media Sanitation. In Table 5.1 of that document, it clearly states that the only acceptable methods for purging data from hard drives are degaussing and Secure Erase. Unfortunately degaussing renders the hard drive un-usable whereas with the Secure Erase method, the hard drive is reusable.

For customers who are interested in re-using their hard drives, we now offer both an on-site and off-site certified purging service. Our highly trained technicians can perform a Secure Erase on all ATA drives (including IDE, EIDE, PATA, SATA, and laptop drives) through an interface cable with our hardware. This Secure Erase process is in conjunction with the internal secure erase command mandated by the ATA specification developed by the T-13 technical committee.

Data Killers will issue and send a Certificate of Purging stating that a Secure Erase program was successfully run on the specified drives. For our customers' convenience, Data Killers will keep copies of the Certificates on file for one (1) year.

Our purging process is in full compliance with all criteria as set forth by various laws and regulations. We offer a third-party verification of our purging service. We will ship randomly selected hard drives in our secure containers to a third-party domestic forensic specialist for immediate verification of purging. This outside certification will provide the ultimate peace of mind for our customers. This service is available for an additional fee.

The hardware for purging with the Secure Erase standard will be available for re-sale by mid-2008. In conjunction with our data security affiliate, we are also developing a solution for purging data from fiber channel hard drives and SCCI drives. We expect to have this fully operational by Q3 2008. Our affiliate on this project is a highly respected government contractor who has won awards for their innovative data security work.