TrueErase: Per-file Secure Deletion for the Storage Data Path

The ability to delete sensitive data securely from electronic storage is growing in importance. However, current per-file deletion solutions tend to be limited to a segment of the operating system’s storage data path or specific to certain file systems or storage media.
This paper introduces TrueErase, a holistic secure-deletion framework. Through design, implementation, verification, and evaluation, we show that it is possible to build a legacy-compatible full-storage-data-path framework that performs per-file secure deletion, works with common file systems and solid-state storage, while handling common system failures. In addition, this framework can serve as a building block for encryption- and tainting-based secure-deletion systems.

Author(s):

Sarah Diesburg    
Florida State University
United States

Christopher Meyers    
Florida State University
United States

Mark Stanovich    
Florida State University
United States

Michael Mitchell    
Florida State University
United States

Justin Marshall    
Florida State University
United States

Julia Gould    
Florida State University
United States

An-I Andy Wang    
Florida State University
United States

Geoff Kuenning    
Harvey Mudd College
United States