Blancco

Blancco Ltd. is an international data security company that specializes in data erasure and computer reuse management solutions for corporations, governments^[1] and computer remarketing companies.^[2] Founded and headquartered in Joensuu, Finland, the company operates from offices across Europe, North America, The Middle East, Russia, Asia and Australasia. Blancco is a wholly owned subsidiary of Regenersis, a strategic outsourcing company to consumer technology companies.^[3]

Corporation

History

In 1997, Janne Tervo and Kim Väisänen co-founded Carelian Innovation Ltd, a company focusing mainly on research and development projects in the field of electronics and computer peripheral devices. In the latter part of that year, a Finnish hospital accidentally sold a PC containing medical records of 3,000 patients, and the idea of a 100% secure data erasure tool for securely wiping hard disk drives was born. The company’s first data erasure product, Blancco Data Cleaner, was released in 1999. Then, in 2000, Carelian Innovations Ltd. changed its name to Blancco Ltd.

In 2003, Blancco reached one million users and by 2005 exceeded three million users. Sun Microsystems and Blancco formed a partnership in 2007 to deliver secure and flexible data erasure solutions. Another important milestone also occurred in 2007 when Blancco was approved and included in the NATO Information Assurance Product Catalogue (NIAPC). The company expanded its product line in 2008 with the introduction of the Blancco 4.5 client series for added server support, and the Data Center Edition, which enables safe reuse of the hard drives in mass storage environments for clients such as Sun, HP and EMC that need deep data expunging.^[4]

The company released Blancco Mobile for smartphone erasure in 2012. In 2011, Blancco LUN was launched and in 2012 Blancco 5 and Management Console 3 were released. The company also acquired DBAN in 2012 and received Common Criteria certification that same year. In 2013, Blancco introduced an SSD erasure solution as part of the Blancco 4 and Blancco 5 product solutions, as well as Blancco vCloud Erasure to erase virtual servers in data center environments that use the VMware vCloud Director tool.

The company continues to focus on data security in a wide range of industries, including banking, finance, government and defense. Over 250 refurbishment centers have standardized on Blancco’s technology platform.^[5] Blancco was acquired by Regenersis in April 2014.^[6]

Leadership

Kim Väisänen, Managing Director

Daniel Smith, International Sales Director

Mark Lambton, Financial Director

Sami Tuupanen, Director of Products and Services

Board of directors

Jog Dhogy (CFO Regenersis), Chairman

Kim Väisänen, Managing Director

Territories/Divisions

Europe

Joensuu, Finland (Head Office)

Helsinki, Finland

Tampere, Finland

Lille, France

Berlin, Germany

Ludwigsburg, Germany

Milan, Italy

Moscow, Russia

Madrid, Spain

Stockholm, Sweden

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

London, United Kingdom

North America

Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada

Mexico City, Mexico

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Asia-Pacific

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Tokyo, Japan

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Seoul, Republic of Korea

Auckland, New Zealand

Products

Blancco’s data wipe products scale from a single, reusable PC erasure tool to software for erasure requirements in mass storage environments and data centers. The various versions support erasure of different hardware configurations.

Supported hardware erasure

	PC Edition	Server Edition	SPARC Edition	Data Center Edition
Number of hard drives supported	4	16	200+	200+
Overwrite IDE, SATA, SCSI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Overwrite SAS hard disks		Yes	Yes	Yes
SSD erasure	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Freeze lock removal	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Overwrite Fibre Channel hard disks		Yes	Yes	Yes
Overwrite USB hard disks	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Erase several disks simultaneously		Yes	Yes	Yes
RAID dismantling		Yes		Yes
Overwrite HPA and DCO areas	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Overwrite IDE, SAS and SCSI remapped sectors	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hardware testing	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Certifications

Blancco’s products exceed international security standards and adhere to international certification processes. Blancco’s security certificates and approvals include:

Common Criteria (ISO 15408)^[7]
Communications Electronics Security Group: United Kingdom Information Technology Group (CESG)^[8]
BSI (Federal Office for Information Security/ Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik), Germany
Netherlands National Communication Security Agency (Dutch AIVD)
Swedish Armed Forces
Central Information Systems Security Division (DCSSI), France
Refurbished (reuse) Information Technology Equipment Association (RITEA), Japan
The Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW)

Approvals and recommendations

NATO (listed in the NATO Information Assurance Product Catalogue)^[9]
United States Department of Defense
Defense INFOSEC Product Co-Operation Group of the UK: United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (DIPCOG)
TÜV SÜD
Czech Republic’s National Security Authority (Národní bezpecnostní úrad)
Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM)

Standards

The following international standards are supported by Blancco software:

Standards supported by Blancco 5

HMG Infosec Standard 5, Baseline/Lower Standard
HMG Infosec Standard 5, Enhanced/Higher Standard
U.S. Department of Defense Sanitizing (DOD 5220.22-M, DOD 5220.22-M ECE)
Bruce Schneier's algorithm
Navy Staff Office Publication (NAVSO P-5239-26)
National Computer Security Center (NCSC-TG-025)
Air Force System Security Instructions 5020
U.S. Army AR380-19
OPNAVINST 5239.1A
NSA 130-1
Peter Gutmann's algorithm
NAVSO P-5239-26 TOP SECRET (FEPROM)
NAVSO P-5239-26 SECRET or CONFIDENTIAL (FEPROM)
U.S. Army AR380-19 (FEPROM)
Firmware-based secure erase—ATA
Firmware-based secure erase—SCSI
NIST 800-88 ATA
Extended NIST 800-88 ATA
Extended NIST 800-88 SCSI
Blancco SSD Erasure ATA

Standards supported by Blancco 4.12

NIST 800-88 Clear/Purge Method I
NIST 800-88 Clear/Purge Method II
NIST 800-88 Clear/Purge Method I + II
HMG Infosec Standard 5, Baseline/Lower Standard
HMG Infosec Standard 5, Enhanced/Higher Standard
Peter Gutmann's algorithm
US Department of Defense Sanitizing DOD 5220.22-M
Bruce Schneier's algorithm
NAVSO P-5239-26 for RLL
National Computer Security Center NCSC-TG-025
Air Force System Security Instructions 5020
U.S. Army AR380-19
German Standard BSI/VSITR
OPNAVINST 5239.1A
Non-confidential
Department Confidential
State Confidential
State SECRET
NSA 130-1
U.S. Department of Defense Sanitizing (DOD 5220.22-M, DOD 5220.22-M ECE)
SSD

Awards

Data erasure tools from Blancco have garnered awards and accolades that include:

2013 Strongest Company in Finland of Suomen Asiakastieto Oy^[10]
2013 Tivi Company of the Year Award from Tietoviiko ICT Magazine^[11]
2012 Company of the Year from Kauppalehti and the OP-Pohjola Group^[12]
2012 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Finland^[13]
2012 President of the Republic of Finland's Internationalization Award^[14]

References

External links

Data erasure

Methods	Overwriting, degaussing, encryption and physical destruction Sanitization

Schemes	Gutmann method DoD 5220.22-M AFSSI-5020

Software	BCWipe Bitraser BleachBit CCleaner Data Shredder Darik's Boot and Nuke dd Disk Utility Factory reset HDDerase Hdparm shred ShredIt srm TuneUp Utilities Zeero

Legal	Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act SB 1386 Sarbanes–Oxley Act

List of data erasing software

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