You can even opt to physically destroy your hard drives for optimal results. If you use SSDs instead of hard drives, then you may want to erase your data according to NIST 800-88 instead. Now you know what the DoD standard is and why it matters to your organization.

However, considering both the government and other programs look to NIST 800-88 instead of DoD 5220.22-m for data erasure guidelines, it should be ideal for your organization to follow it as well. Do note that this is just a set of guidelines and doesn’t offer certifications (the DoD standard doesn’t either). This is because SSDs use different methods of data storage, which make the DoD standard irrelevant.Īs a result, the industry-standard has shifted away from DoD 5220.22-m to NIST 800-88.

The Future of the DoD Wiping Standardīecause organizations now use solid-state drives (SSDs) over regular hard drives, this has posed a problem with the DoD 5220.22-m standard. Once the old devices leave your place of business, then it can be very easy for other parties to retrieve data on your hard drives. This is especially important if you’re getting rid of devices and replacing them with new ones. Otherwise, you risk it falling into the wrong hands. Why Does the DoD 5220.22-m Standard Matter?Īs you can see, the DoD 5220.22-m standard matters because you want to erase data completely when you’re done with it. If done correctly, this should prevent any entity from recovering the data that was intended to be erased.īecause this standard offered a clear-cut way of data sanitation, it was quickly adopted across all industries. This dictated how data was erased from hard drives so that information was never compromised.Īccording to this standard, the proper way to sanitize hard drives of data is to: It first came about in 1995 and was originally created for the US military (hence “DoD,” or “Department of Defense”). The DoD standard is also known as the DoD 5220.22-m standard. Why Does the DoD 5220.22-m Standard Matter?.

Dod 5220.22