Toshiba announces Wipe Technology for self-encrypting disk drives

It is a first stage for Toshiba to regain the global market shares of hard-drive disks at a security expectation. Mobile devices may work with more remote command software to keep sensitive date safe and reliable. Japan's IT industries and computer technologies have maintained its fresh competitiveness in the 21st century.

In point of fact, this Wipe Technology does not WIPE anything. It does not even overwrite. It does not make the data indecipherable, it just loses the key for you automatically. If someone wants the data badly enough, they can make a new key, right?

Ok. It's cute. It will excite some people, but it is not new, it is not "securely erasing" data, and it is not secure. If I were a data criminal I would love to get my hands on these because then I would know that whatever is on the disk is worth a bundle. The data are worth so much that a company would rather lose the data from a power surge or brownout than let it fall into my clutches.

Alternatively, how much could the data be worth if someone bumping the power switch or tripping over a power cord makes it all indecipherable?

Alternatively, how much could the data be worth if someone bumping the power switch or tripping over a power cord makes it all indecipherable?

I guess you've never heard of batteries or UPS, uninterruptable power supply?

Anyways, I'm also skeptical of this HD's security, although it would defeat low-level corporate espionage attempts. If they use military-grade encryption, this would present a significant cost and time barrier to the thieves. And if the information is truly overwrite-erased and encrypted during power-down...

I think that is the goal to keep low-level pirates/staff from copying the data.

Considering that the vast majority of cyber-/computer crimes are done/helped by insiders.

Having worked in IT for decades, data can even be retrieved after 2~3 low-level formats. Hence why police, military, etc can recover most data regardless of what you did to the device. Just takes time, skill and effort.

Also having worked in Security NOT just IT, a companies trash can be more valuable than a HD.

"I guess you've never heard of batteries or UPS, uninterruptable power supply?"

Haha. So I want to have HOW MUCH data depending on a 200 dollar battery or a 400 dollar UPS? Sheesh. Just one more thing that can go wrong. I HAVE been there and done that. Here is a true story for you. I had several computers hooked up to a UPS and they all went down one day, wasting quite a bit of my time getting them all configured again. What was the disastrous catastrophe that did my whole network in?

An employee who needed a convenient outlet decided to plug a vacuum cleaner into a UPS outlet. That is about 800 Watts and OOOOPS! No more UPS and no more network configuration. I was not there, but I am pretty sure that the vacuum cleaner was not the only thing making a sucking sound.

Point being, if something CAN go wrong, it WILL go wrong. Having all of my data encrypted by a brownout or a clueless employee would ruin my day.

And yes Jason, overwrite is perfectly reliable and simple. What Toshiba should do is have a BIOS level command that will do that to a data disk on a regular basis, or even with a special command at boot, or something like that. That would truly be a WIPE and it would confound decryption by anybody.

And Zenny, I know. I would even venture that low level formatting would not do anything even after 10 iterations because all it does is change the FAT, not the disk information. That is why overwriting is the weapon of choice. Your last comment is cause for hilarity. Employees can't even use a shredder, how can we expect them to use encryption properly, even if it is automatic? So we agree on that.

You guys are right, but so am I.

You know what? Why not encrypted BACKUP with timed disk overwrites? That would be far more useful and less risky. Or how about RAID where the FATs get scrambled if the system is tampered with? Pretty hard to reconstruct files when they are scattered among 10 or so disks and then mishmashed.

You guys get it completely wrong. Those HDs with the wipe feature are intended to store temporary data. You do not want to make back-ups of that data and you don't care about power outages. Think about swap files or other temporary files in systems which process confidential data. Think about temporary files in office copy-fax-printers. When you turn off the power, all you lose is the data of the running or pending jobs.

What these HDs prevent is that some e.g. service technician will exchange the HD in the system and get the confidential information by reading all the old temporary files which are left on the HD.

Klein2, you are right, the HD only forgets the key. If Toshiba have chosen state of the art encryption and done their job on the hardware implementation that's more than enough. There is absolutely no need to physically wipe the data. If you think you can generate a new key, have fun with it :-)

gonemad.

So if I copy a top-secret document of a multi-million deal it is ok because the data is only temporare.

Sorry, as any IT -person will tell you the validity of the data don't change if it is permanent or temporare. Temporare is actually more in danger of getting leaked.

FYI, industrial spies to implant snoopers in copiers, etc that make a record of anything that is copied.

Zenny, what I wanted to say is that you do not need and, even more, you do not want to make backups of the temporary data, so all the worries above about backup are unfounded.

I fully agree with you that temporary data is usually more in danger to get leaked. It's not immediately visible, so people take less care. That problem is addressed by the new HDs - at least partially. Any power-down of the HD will make the data unreadable. It removes one potential attack scenario. Of course you still have to take care of so many other scenarios, depending on your system...