Blancco Enhances Erasure Software

Blancco, which provides data erasure solutions for electronics, has announced enhanced client erasure software that supports the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines for firmware-based erasure of ATA and SCSI drives. According to Blancco, it “takes the NIST–recommended guidelines a step further by uniting them with a software overwriting option that verifies complete erasure.”

Markku Willgren, North American vice president for business and sales development at Blancco, says, “Blancco’s software combines the ease of firmware-based data erasure with the security and reporting capabilities of software overwriting to maximize information security in all situations.”

Execution of the secure erase command for ATA drives and the format unit command for SCSI drives depends on the individual drive manufacturer’s implementation of NIST Standards and may fail in certain hardware configurations, according to Blancco. The company’s software adds an overwriting pass after issuance of the firmware command that clears remapped sectors and offers a system-generated report, helping to avoid human error encountered with manual firmware command execution alone, the company says.

“Blancco’s software answers the growing demand from our clients for a data destruction option that supports the NIST Secure Erase command,” says Jeff Neyland, CIO of Intechra, an IT asset disposition services provider. “Blancco helps us in our mission to make enterprise-grade asset disposition reliable, worry-free and efficient.”

In addition to supporting NIST Standards, Blancco’s client software features support of SAS/SATA drives and network cards for over-the-network data erasure and reporting. Other enhancements include serial console operation for data center equipment with limited connectivity, such as blade servers, the company reports.

Finland-based Blancco operates from a network of international offices and partners across Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia. More information is available at www.blancco.com.