NIST (the National Institute for Standards and Technology) Special Publication 800-88, originally released in 2006 and revised in 2012, takes into consideration the newer technologies in use today. Today’s hard drive technologies are very precise and have eliminated this as a potential vulnerability. Specifically, part of Gutmann’s claim was that the head positioning system in hard drives was not precise enough to overwrite new data on top of the exact position of the old data, thus creating the possibility that the old data would remain intact. Modern hard drives over the last 10-15 years have advanced in technology to the point where the MFM and STM techniques have become obsolete. However, considering the pace of advancement in technology in the years since, this criteria is generally considered to be out of date.

The Department of Defense 5220.22-M requires 3 overwrites passes (0’s, 1’s, Random) with a 100% verification pass. Gutmann’s study was widely cited and lead to the adoption of the DoD 3-pass wipe as a standard. He proposed that data could be recovered using magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) techniques. The idea that multiple wipe passes are required to render data irrecoverable originates in part with a 1996 study published by Peter Gutmann who suggested that data should be wiped up to 35 times in order to be rendered irrecoverable. Pass as standard practice for sanitizing hard drives. WhiteCanyon Software recommends using the NIST single Most regulatory bodies, including in government, now look to the NIST 800-88 as their standard because of new technology.

More and more organizations are seeing the advantages of switching to NIST 800-88 guidelines instead. The DoD 5220.22-M has long been an industry standard when it comes to data sanitization, but the tide is quickly changing.

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