Leo knew that SSDs are "liars" by design. To prevent the memory cells from wearing out, a controller inside the drive constantly moves data around in the background—a process called . When you delete a file, the drive doesn't actually delete it; it just marks that space as "invalid" and moves on.
This is a story about how the very features that make modern SSDs fast—like and background garbage collection —can become a security professional's biggest headache. The Phantom Files of Sector 42 ssd security
"He thinks he's safe," Leo muttered, connecting the drive to a specialized hardware imager. Leo knew that SSDs are "liars" by design