Data Sanitization
Intelligence.
Technical documentation, benchmark studies, and strategic whitepapers from the D-Secure Lab research programme.
From the D-Secure Team
Global Security Units
Guides Library
2026 Edition
About the programme
What the D-Secure Lab publishes, and why
D-Secure builds data-erasure software, and most of the questions our customers bring to us are not about buttons. They are about decisions: which sanitization standard to write into policy, whether an SSD can be overwritten the way a hard drive can, how long a refresh project will take, and what evidence an auditor will accept when a laptop leaves the building. The D-Secure Lab research programme exists to answer those questions in writing, in more depth than a product page allows.
The library currently holds four papers. Two are reference material: a comparison of the main media sanitization standards and a framework for placing erasure inside a zero-trust security programme. Two look at practice: an annual view of the state of data destruction and a study of how long different erase methods take on different drive types.
All four share one starting point. Deleting files or formatting a drive removes pointers, not data, so disposal is only safe when the data is sanitized with a method suited to the media and when there is a record that proves it. Throughout the papers you will see the NIST SP 800-88 levels used as a common language: Clear for overwriting user-addressable storage, Purge for controller-level sanitize or cryptographic erase, and Destroy for physical destruction, which is done with hardware rather than software.
How to read these reports
- The papers are written by the D-Secure team. They explain the reasoning behind how our products work, so read them as a vendor perspective.
- Each card below says what kind of paper it is and what method, if any, the paper states. Where a paper does not describe its method, we say so.
- Standards are described as written by their publishers. D-Secure methods follow NIST SP 800-88; confirm your own legal obligations with your compliance team.
- Product capabilities in the papers apply to the products available today: Drive Eraser, File Eraser and Autopilot Detection.
The library
Four reports, summarised
Where to start
Which report answers your question?
The papers build on each other, but each one can be read alone. Start with the one that matches the decision in front of you, then follow the links inside it.
From research to practice
The papers explain the reasoning; the product documentation shows the steps. Drive Eraser boots from a USB drive, applies NIST SP 800-88 Clear and Purge methods, and produces a signed report for every drive. File Eraser removes selected files and folders while the operating system keeps running. To check that a report has not been altered, use the report verification page.
"Data sanitization is no longer a maintenance task. It is a security control, and it needs evidence like any other."
D-Secure Lab