Data Security & Sanitization Glossary

Asset Disposal and Information Security Alliance. An industry body that audits and certifies ITAD services and sanitization software.

The 'Right to Erasure' (Right to be Forgotten) requiring data controllers to erase personal data without undue delay.

A firmware-level command used to sanitize all user-addressable storage areas on an ATA-compatible drive (HDD or SSD).

A section of a storage medium that has become physically damaged or is unable to store data reliably, potentially harboring residual data fragments.

The German Federal Office for Information Security, which sets rigorous standards for data security and information technology within the EU.

A formal, digitally signed document proving that data was sanitized according to specific standards on a specific device at a specific time.

The chronological documentation showing the seizure, custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of physical assets containing data.

An economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources, specifically by repurposing hardware instead of shredding it.

A sanitization method that leverages the encryption of target data by sanitizing the target data's encryption key.

Information assets organizations collect, process, and store during regular business activities, but generally fail to use for other purposes or properly decommission.

The process of deliberately, permanently, and irreversibly removing or destroying data stored on a memory device to make it unrecoverable.

A hidden area on a drive that allows vendors to specify a drive's capacity. D-Secure identifies and sanitizes this area to ensure zero data leakage.

The process of reducing or eliminating a remnant magnetic field by applying an opposite magnetic field. Primarily used for magnetic tapes and older HDDs.

A specialized data compression technique for eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data. D-Secure sanitizes deduplicated storage arrays at the logical level.

A 3-pass overwrite standard originally developed by the U.S. Department of Defense for sanitizing magnetic media.

Discarded electrical or electronic devices. D-Secure's erasure mission directly reduces e-waste by enabling the safe reuse of hardware.

A set of standards for a company's operations that socially conscious investors use to screen potential investments.

The process of retrieving data from a storage medium using specialized software or hardware after the data has been 'deleted'.

A list of sectors that have failed after the drive left the factory. D-Secure probes the G-List to identify hidden data risks.

An algorithm for securely erasing the contents of magnetic media, typically using a 35-pass overwrite sequence.

A hardware-level password that locks access to a drive. D-Secure can bypass or reset these in managed enterprise environments.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. U.S. legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information.

An area on a hard drive that is typically not visible to an operating system. D-Secure unlocks and sanitizes the HPA to ensure complete data removal.

The first global standard specifically focused on the sanitization of storage media, developed by the IEEE Computer Society.

The practice of disposing of IT assets in a safe and ecologically responsible manner, including data destruction and hardware recycling.

A common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices.

A programmatic approach to managing data security from asset discovery through verified destruction and auditable Reporting.

A unique identifier used to designate an individual or collection of physical or virtual storage devices addressed by a network protocol.

The key used to encrypt the actual data on a Self-Encrypting Drive (SED). Sanitizing this key renders the data unrecoverable.

A type of non-volatile storage technology that does not require power to retain data. Used in SSDs and mobile devices.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology Guidelines for Media Sanitization. Includes techniques: Clear, Purge, and Destroy.

A specialized command set for NVMe drives that ensures all user data, including that in caches and hidden areas, is completely removed.

The inclusion of extra storage capacity in an SSD that is not visible to the user. D-Secure ensures data in these areas is sanitized.

A sanitization method that replaces existing data with new data (typically zeros or random patterns) to prevent data recovery.

A list of factory-identified bad sectors on a drive. D-Secure cross-references this list during hardware auditing.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. A set of security standards designed to ensure all companies that process credit card information maintain a secure environment.

A sanitization action that renders data recovery infeasible even using advanced laboratory techniques. (NIST 800-88 definition).

A protocol that allows a computer to boot from a network interface, used by D-Secure for mass data center sanitization.

A sector that has been moved by the drive controller due to a failure. These sectors are a primary target for D-Secure auditing.

An ATA/ACS command that performs a hardware-level wipe of all blocks on a drive, including those not currently mapped to LBAs.

A hard drive or SSD with a circuit built into the controller chip that encrypts all data written to the media.

A field within computer security where software products and services combine security information and event management.

A voluntary compliance standard for service organizations, developed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA).

A storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory.

A system-generated record of sanitization events that cannot be modified or deleted, ensuring the integrity of compliance evidence.

An ATA command that allows an operating system to inform an SSD which blocks of data are no longer considered in use.

A technique used by SSD controllers to prolong the life of the flash memory by distributing writes evenly across all blocks.

Storage media that can only be written to once and never erased. D-Secure identifies these to prevent wasted sanitization cycles.

A unique identifier used in storage technologies like Fibre Channel and SAS to identify a specific hardware target.

A simple sanitization method that replaces all addressable data on a drive with zeros.