What is a DoD wipe?

What is a DoD wipe?

A DoD wipe refers to permanently erasing data from hardware in accordance with the “DoD standard,” otherwise known as DoD 5220.22-M, which is the standard set by the U.S. Department of Defense for securely erasing data from a hard drive. The DoD established this standard in the 1990s to ensure data protection through random overwriting methods as companies disposed of old computers. 

Can data be recovered after a DoD wipe?

The goal of the DoD standard is that meaningful data should not be able to be recovered once it has been overwritten. However, because the DoD standard has been around since the 1990s, some of its requirements are no longer up-to-date with today’s changing technology and security needs. That is why at Liquid Technology, our data wiping efforts always meet or exceed DoD standards (as well as the more modern NIST standards), in order to ensure privacy for the company, employees, and clients who need to destroy sensitive data from used hardware and IT equipment.