Secure Data Deletion

Personal Data Protection Law

The “Deletion, Destruction, or Anonymization of Personal Data” is also stipulated in Article 7 of Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data, and the procedures and principles for the deletion, destruction, or anonymization of personal data are determined by the relevant regulation. Deletion of personal data refers to rendering personal data inaccessible and unusable for relevant users; destruction of personal data is defined as rendering personal data inaccessible, irretrievable, and unusable by anyone.

The necessity of securely disposing of data includes important information that must be kept confidential in both the private sector and public institutions (personal data, sensitive special category data, personnel information, institutional policies, R&D studies, credit card numbers, financial records, etc.). Nowadays, such data is digitally stored in computers, servers, and storage units.

While there is often an emphasis on protecting, storing, and backing up data against threats, the importance is not frequently given to the deletion and destruction of data. As is known, using standard delete commands for data that is no longer needed is not sufficient. These data must be securely and permanently destroyed.

The significance of protecting, storing, and backing up data against threats is not often applied to the deletion and destruction of data. As is known, using standard delete commands for data that is no longer needed is not sufficient. Secure and permanent destruction of this data is required.

Secure and permanent deletion and destruction of data are crucial for preventing the risk of sensitive data falling into the wrong hands when proper tools are not used. Irreparable losses in terms of time, money, and most importantly, reputation, can occur. Utilizing secure data destruction hardware that complies with standards and allows for verification is the best method to securely destroy data without taking unnecessary risks.

Methods of Secure Data Destruction
Based on the required level of security, digital data can be destroyed in three different ways. With its industry experience and extensive product portfolio, GMKA DEFENSE can provide solutions tailored to every need.

Overwriting Method
When a file is deleted from a computer, the space allocated for the deleted file on the hard disk remains unchanged until it’s overwritten with new data. Even weeks later, seemingly deleted data can be accessed using simple software tools. In the case of formatting a hard drive, data can still be accessed. The situation with deleted files on SSDs is more complex. SSDs store data in blocks. When a block is deleted, its content is saved to a cache; deleting the block’s content erases the cache, writes the new data to the cache, and restructures the block with the new data.

Many programs claim to perform secure data deletion, but these programs often cannot securely erase all areas of the disk. Disk wiping programs that cannot access the entirety of a disk due to protected areas, remapped sectors, later degraded sectors, operating system backups, remnants in RAM, and locked areas, mislead users by leaving inaccessible data intact.

Secure data deletion hardware is developed taking into account all negative factors and different types of drives. These hardware solutions, equipped with post-process testing and reporting features, replace all data on various sectors across all sectors with meaningless data at the bit level. In the secure data deletion method, data is written to all sectors of the drive multiple times with different patterns, effectively erasing the magnetic signatures of the data. After the secure data deletion process, the media can be reused.

Method of Disrupting Magnetic Traces
Neutralization involves rendering the data on magnetic storage media (hard disks, floppy disks, magnetic tapes, etc.) inaccessible by disrupting the data using a strong magnetic field. When data is written to a magnetic medium, the read-write head directs each point as 0 or 1 using polarization.

Through neutralization, the orientations in the magnetic medium are disrupted, ensuring the permanent deletion of sensitive data. This method is used for the destruction of data on magnetic storage drives containing video, audio, and other types of data. Following the neutralization process, most media become unusable.

Physical Destruction Method
This method involves physically breaking down the drives to destroy them.
Physical destruction can be used for all types of memory devices, but secure data deletion and neutralization processes cannot be applied to all types of media. The compatibility with commonly used media types is as follows: