Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) — Question 439

A company is enrolled in a hard drive reuse program where decommissioned equipment is sold back to the vendor when it is no longer needed. The vendor pays more money for functioning drives than equipment that is no longer operational. Which method of data sanitization would provide the most secure means of preventing unauthorized data loss, while also receiving the most money from the vendor?

Answer options

• A. Pinning
• B. Single-pass wipe
• C. Multi-pass wipes
• D. Degaussing

Correct answer: C

Explanation

The multi-pass wipe method overwrites the data multiple times, making it significantly more difficult for unauthorized users to recover any information, thereby ensuring a high level of security. While other methods like single-pass wipes and degaussing may be effective, they do not provide the same degree of data protection or maximize the resale value from functioning drives as multi-pass wipes do.