Sophia Windsor
[ Gearbest Technology News]Recently, foreign media published an article saying that researchers at Florida International University have developed a new storage technology that transforms the SSD solid state drive itself into a network security defense line. This breakthrough allows deleted files to be recovered for up to 126 days after a cyber attack, and because the storage drive runs independently of the operating system, data is continuously protected even if a hacker has full control of the device software.
Traditionally, when you delete a file, it does not disappear from the hard drive immediately. Instead, it remains on the disk in fragmented form, and is eventually cleared by the system to make room. In theory, if a hacker encrypts or deletes your data, there is a chance that the files can be recovered before they are completely wiped. But the problem is that the SSDs that power most modern computers manage this part of the “digital purgatory” space very haphazardly—when the system needs space, it purges deleted data based purely on efficiency, without any knowledge of which files were just deleted.
Weidong Zhu, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Information Science at FIU, and his team seized this pain point and proposed a new data storage management algorithm. The core design of the system isArrange deleted data in chronological orderprioritizing the removal of files that have been deleted for the longest time, so that recently deleted files are protected for the longest time. At the same time, it will delete the recoverable window of the dataSignificantly extended to 126 daysafter testing, the data protection capability has been improved by at least 60%, while the impact on the hard drive speed is minimal.
“Our system extends the recoverable history of deleted data to 126 days,” said Assistant Professor Zhu. Additionally, the storage drive's protection mechanism operates completely independently of the user's computer operating system, meaning it can continue to function even if a hacker takes full control of the device's software. This research represents an important directional shift, moving storage devices from passive “containers” that host data to the final link in a network's defense system. Assistant Professor Zhu said: “Hackers are very powerful. But the storage device itself can be the last line of defense for your data. This is a completely new field, and we have solved this problem, clearing the way for storage devices to become the main asset against hackers.”
Because storage drives run independently of the operating system, data protection mechanisms remain effective even if a hacker takes full control of the system software layer. The research has now entered the stage of commercialization discussions with industry partners.
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