S 6.148 Disposal of a Mac OS X system

Initiation responsibility: IT Security Officer, Head of IT

Implementation responsibility: Administrator

All sensitive information stored on workstation PCs that will be disposed of must be deleted in a suitable manner. The same applies to information on defective data media. If sensitive information was stored on a data medium and if it is no longer possible to access the data medium due to a hardware fault, the data medium must be destroyed in a suitable manner. Corresponding recommendations can be found in S 1.15 Deleting and destroying data.

The "hard drive utility program" can be used to delete information under Mac OS X. If the data medium with the system partition is affected, the computer must be booted from the Mac OS X installation DVD and the "hard drive utility program" launched from the installation DVD. By means of this program the data medium can be deleted in different manners. "Overwrite data with zeros" should be selected in the security options. The administrators must be trained in handling the "hard drive utility program" and informed on the procedure of secure erasure of data media under Mac OS X.

Before disposing of IT systems or data media, they must be examined to check if there is any data stored on them that is still needed. This data must be saved to other data media or archived. The data should also be checked to ensure it was actually saved correctly. For additional information see S 1.1 Compliance with relevant standards and regulations.

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