east-tec Eraser meets the requirements of a US data wiping standard defined in NISPOM (National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual), called US DoD 5220.22-M, but also all major military, government and industry data destruction standards. Besides that, you can choose from several other wiping methods that are used worldwide, such as:
Peter Gutmann (35 passes)
The standard leader wiping method. A top security (but slow) 35 pass sanitizing method, based on Peter Gutmann's paper Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory. The procedure is designed to erase data regardless of the disk raw encoding. It effectively removes the magnetic remnants from disk, preventing hardware recovery tools from restoring any data. This method is designed to stop both software and hardware recovery tools.
3+7+3 Beyond DoD Standards
A secure (but slower) 13 pass wipe method, exceeding the U.S. Department Defence(DoD) standards. The first 3 passes are with random patterns, the next 7 passes are the standard passes from the DoD standard and the last 3 passes are with random patterns. The last pass is checked. It can be used to wipe data on compressed drives.
Bruce Schneier
Bruce Schneier offers seven pass overwriting algorithm in his Applied Cryptography book. The first pass overwrites all disk data with 0xFF patterns, the second one with 0×00 patterns, and then five times with a cryptographically secure pseudo-random sequence.
US DoD Enhanced (7 pass)
A high security (and slower) 7 pass sanitize method, matching the U.S.Department of Defense standards (DOD 5220.22-M). The method first overwrites with 01010101. The second overwrite is performed with 10101010. This cycle is repeated three times. The final overwrite is made using unclassified data (random characters). This method also meets the NAVSO P5239-26, AFSSI-5020 and AR380-19 standards.
US Naval Information Systems Management Center: NAVSO P-5239-26 (RLL)
Navy Staff Office Publication (NAVSO Pub) 5239, Information Systems Security (INFOSEC) Program Guidelines is issued by the Naval Information Systems Management Center. Disk controllers use a variety of encoding techniques to convert the computer data to a format suitable for the Magnetic data storage media. Typically, ST506 style disk drives use MFM encoding; SCSI and ATA/IDE drives use a Run Length Limited (RLL) encoding scheme. If you are uncertain as to the drive encoding technique, use the RLL pattern.
US Naval Information Systems Management Center: NAVSO P-5239-26 (MFM)
Navy Staff Office Publication (NAVSO Pub) 5239, Information Systems Security (INFOSEC) Program Guidelines is issued by the Naval Information Systems Management Center. Disk controllers use a variety of encoding techniques to convert the computer data to a format suitable for the Magnetic data storage media. Typically, ST506 style disk drives use MFM encoding; SCSI and ATA/IDE drives use a Run Length Limited (RLL) encoding scheme. This method implements the MFM pattern.
US Air Force System Security Instruction 5020: AFSSI-5020
AFSSI-5020 is the USAF Cryptologic Support Center's version of the DOD 5220.22-M purging standard. This deletion method first overwrites the target data area with the fixed value (0x00), then with the fixed value (0xff), and then with a randomly selected constant. Finally, at least 10% of the drive is read to verify the overwrites.
Russian Federation - Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology: GOST P50739-95
1 Logical zeros (0x00 numbers) to each byte of each sector for 6th to 4th security level systems. Randomly selected symbols (numbers) to each byte of each sector for 3rd to 1st security level systems.
The German Federal office for IT Security: German VSITR
The German VSITR method offers seven pass overwriting algorithm. The first 6 passes overwrite data with alternate sequences of 0x00 and 0xFF, and the 7th pass, with 0xAA.
US DoD (3 pass)
The U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) standard was established and has been supervised by The National Industrial Security Program (NISP). The first pass overwrites data with a random character, the second with the complement of character and the last with a randomly generated data stream.
Stop Software Recovery Tools
Two pass wiping (one pass with random numbers, another with zeros). Both passes are checked. recommended if you only want to stop software recovery tools. Works with files on compressed drives.
Quick Wiping (Random Pass)
A quick, single pass sanitization method that overwrites all disk data with random characters (patterns). This type of sanitizing is able to stop all software recovery tools (unformat and unerase tools, low level disk editors, etc) from recovering the original data stored on the disk. This method leaves the entire disk filled with unclassified (random) information and no trace of the original data.
Quick Wiping (One pass/check)
A quick, single pass sanitization method that overwrites all disk data with "zero" characters (patterns). This type of sanitizing is able to stop all software recovery tools (unformat and unerase tools, low level disk editors, etc) from recovering the original data stored on the disk. This is the US Department of Defence's approved method for clearing disks (but not for sanitizing disk that contain sensitive information).
Quick Wiping (One pass/no check)
A quick, single pass sanitization method that overwrites all disk data with "zero" characters (patterns). This type of sanitizing is able to stop all software recovery tools (unformat and unerase tools, low level disk editors, etc) from recovering the original data stored on the disk. This is the US Department of Defence's approved method for clearing disks (but not for sanitizing disk that contain sensitive information).