Case Study

Indian Government Agency
Rolls Out HDD, SSD Reuse withVerified Secure Data Erasure
Highlights
Using Blancco data erasuresolutions, the agency has:
 Enabled safe, certified HDD
and SSD reuse as an alternative
to physical destruction
 Verified, through a thirdparty vendor, that data
is unrecoverable aftersecure erasure Fulfilled the governmental
requirement for procuring an
STQC-certified solution
 Adopted premium local
support in Delhi throughBlancco’s partner network

To replace its former practice of physically destroying
drives to protect sensitive data, a security-criticalIndian government agency implemented HDD andSSD secure erasure. The revised procedure enables
sanitized storage devices to be redeployed, improving
both financial and environmental sustainability. Robust
audit and regulatory compliance are ensured by tamperproof reporting and certification of each erasure.
Challenge
Like many government entities all over the world, the agency followed a strict
policy of physically destroying drives as its only method of sanitizing them.
Unfortunately, this approach has financial shortcomings because it prevents
drive reuse, forcing the agency to sacrifice their remaining asset value. It also
has environmental shortcomings, with shredded drive components ending
up as e-waste in landfills. The agency wanted to overcome these limitations
using a secure erasure solution that would allow HDDs and SSDs from laptops
to be reused instead of destroyed.
Before the agency could confidently redeploy its used laptops, it needed toensure that previously stored drive data was beyond recovery. That required
being able to produce empirical proof of data removal and fulfilling thegovernment requirement to use a solution certified by the Standardisation
Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate, an office of the Indian
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. In addition, the agency’s
headquarters in Delhi required the solution to provide local technical support.

Solution
After a thorough vetting process, the agency chose Blancco Drive Eraser
as its secure erasure solution. Blancco Drive Eraser provides a single tool for
secure erasure and verification of all data storage drives, such as HDDs, SSDs
(including NVMe and PCIe), self-encrypting drives (TCG Opal), drives in Applemachines with T2 security chips, and more. Blancco’s patented SSD erasuremethod ensures that all data on SSDs is destroyed beyond recoverability.
Critically, the solution also provided tamper-proof certification for audit
purposes.
To verify that the solution rendered data completely unrecoverable, theagency contracted with a specialty data forensics provider, delivering test
drives that had been securely erased with Blancco Drive Eraser. The vendor
applied a rigorous battery of techniques in an unsuccessful attempt toretrieve the erased data; it concluded that the data had been completely
eradicated and could not practically be recovered.
Government agencies in India also require that vendor solutions be “STQCcertified”—or recognized by the country’s Standardisation Testing andQuality Certification (STQC) Directorate. Blancco Drive Eraser met thisrequirement, too: Operated by the STQC, the Indian Common Criteria
Certification Scheme (IC3S) is recognized by the Common Criteria
Recognition Arrangement (CCRA), an association of more than 30 member
countries.
Because all members recognize certifications from any CCRA authorizing
member, Blancco Drive Eraser’s Common Criteria certification, awarded
by the Australasian Certification Authority in 2020, met this requirement.
Common Criteria’s rigorous security testing and certification can therefore
provide confidence for deployments within other Indian government
agencies—just as it has for government organizations (including defenseentities) all over the world.
In addition to software and support, the Blancco solution implements offline
secure erasure using a HASP key. This physical dongle, which connects
directly to a laptop or desktop, prevents the need for the agency to accessresources from a cloud or other external network, or even to deploy anapplication on their own on-premise servers.
Blancco also provided local support through its network of qualified partners,
meeting another key stipulation of the project.

Results
With Blancco Drive Eraser in place, the agency can confidently redeploy drives
that would otherwise, until recently, have been destroyed. This capability
avoids the cost of replacing those drives while mitigating threats associatedwith unintentional data exposure. It also helps reduce the amount of e-wastethat reaches landfills in the form of shredded storage media.
Because Blancco Drive Eraser’s Common Criteria certification satisfies
regulatory criteria for use by the Indian government, the customer canconfidently expand its use, including for cloud, on-prem, and hybrid
environments. Each secure erasure is documented using tamper-proof
certificates that provide granular assurances of data destruction, for use bothinternally and for audit purposes. Blancco’s global partner network provides
local support in Delhi where it’s needed, to help optimize the solution’s use inproduction.
This implementation provides a pattern that other government agencies canemulate to enable secure data erasure programs of their own, recapturing© Blancco Technology Group. 2021. All rights reserved. rev 2021.12

capital through drive reuse while meeting rigorous operational, cybersecurity,
and regulatory requirements.

About Blancco
Reduce Risk. Increase Efficiency. Be Sustainable. Blancco Technology
Group (AIM: BLTG) provides organizations with secure, compliant, andautomated solutions that accelerate the transition to the circular economy.
Each year, tens of millions of Blancco erasures allow top-tier organizations
to protect end-of-life data against unauthorized access, safely redeploy
data storage assets, and firmly comply with increased data protection andprivacy requirements. Our precise device diagnostics help move used IT
assets confidently into the circular economy, enabling enterprises, IT asset
disposition (ITAD) vendors and recyclers, and mobile industry stakeholders tooperate more sustainably.
Globally approved, recommended and certified by governing and industry
bodies around the world, Blancco is the industry standard in data erasure andmobile lifecycle solutions. With 35+ patented or patent-pending ideas, wecontinue to grow the number of innovative solutions global companies canrely on to accelerate operations, secure their data, and grow their businesses.
Read more about us at blancco.com.

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