Blancco Awarded Patent

Blancco Technology Group Oy Ltd. is pleased to announce it has been awarded a patent by the US Patent Office for the unique, secure and verifiable method by which its Blancco 5 product erases data from solid state drives.

Data from Markets and Markets indicates that the global SSD market is poised for rapid growth and expected to be worth $230 billion by 2022.

As Pat Clawson, CEO, Blancco, explains, “With benefits such as durability, speed, reliability, energy efficiency and better overall performance, it’s no wonder so many organizations favor SSDs over HDD drives as their preferred storage device. At the same time, budgetary and resource constraints have driven IT administrators to reuse SSDs whenever possible.“

Designed to specifically handle functionality differences across a myriad of SSD vendors, the patented process consists of the following:

• A multi-phase, proprietary SSD erasure approach that utilizes all available security protocols supported by SSDs

• Automated techniques to remove system BIOS freeze locks, enabling access to key internal security features of an SSD

• Procedures that root out those drives that give false positives about their internal erasure processes

• Third-party benchmark testing and validation, as our firm’s data erasure products have conducted more testing than any other vendor

• A comprehensive tamper-proof report to confirm erasure results and serve as an essential part of compliance and auditing requirements

• In addition to expanding the scope of the previously granted SSD erasure patents in the European Union and Finland, this patent (No. 9,286,231) provides organizations with a secure method to handle end-of-life storage devices – regardless of underlying technology – in a cost-effective, secure and eco-friendly manner.

Clawson concluded, “Unfortunately, knowledge of the proper SSD erasure methods and tools has not been anywhere near as fast or as ubiquitous as the SSD adoption rate. And when free tools/software are used (as they so often are), it makes matters even worse because such tools cannot adequately do the job and leave large amounts of data accessible. To us, these challenges demonstrated a clear market need for a secure and verifiable way to sanitize and reuse SSDs. Our new patent and our Blancco 5 product not only fulfill this need, but also help organizations minimize their security risks and likelihood of data breaches.“

To help organizations understand the traits that make SSD end-of-life erasure absolutely necessary, the company has created a white paper that can be downloaded. (registration required.)