Abstract: Thefright for security and privacy has increased significantly with the new updateswhich have occurred in the practice of network, electronic devices such as PDA,storage, digital I/O and Smart Cell Phones. With the passage of time, a devicecan have a large volume of stored data for a single user which may be of no usealso. In addition to this, internet files, cache, cookies, images, video &audio files etc. may overriding the large space in memory of devices. So when auser or an organization changes or upgrades existing device, there is greatneed to delete existing data permanently. Criminals also delete files todestroy evidences. Deleting the old files, folders from the disk or fromrecycle bin or by disk formatting is not a guaranteed way to remove any data orfile from the digital device. Data can be recovered with freely available largenumber of software. This imposes great threat to privacy of innocent user andthe same time provides help to forensic investigators. Sanitization of a devicemeans before changing or upgrading any storage media, absolutely removingcomplete data from it. Data can’t be recovered with any data recovery softwarefrom sanitized device. However data sanitization is also considered as one ofthe method of anti-forensic. A study on need of sanitization of differentmemory or storage devices and the options which are applicable for sanitizationhas been carried out. The paper highlights various methods, tools andtechniques, for hard drives and flash drives, for removing residual data andsanitizing them.
Keywords: Digital Forensic, Data Sanitization, DiskWiping, Secure Eraser, Masking, Shuffling.