Preventing malicious cryptographic erasure of storage devices

A method for preventing malicious cryptographic erasure of storage devices in an information handling system, comprising:

• detecting a first power-on event;
• and
• performing, in response to detecting the first power-on event, a power-on initialization sequence, including:
• determining whether a cryptographic erase operation directed to a storage device that was authorized prior to detection of the first power-on event and while the information handling system was in a state in which requests to perform cryptographic erase operations on the storage device are not acted on is pending, wherein an authorized cryptographic erase operation is a cryptographic erase operation that has been determined to have been received from an authenticated entity;
• and
• sending, to the storage device in response to determining that there is no pending cryptographic erase operation that was authorized prior to detection of the first power-on event and while the information handling system was in a state in which requests to perform cryptographic erase operations on the storage device are not acted on, a command to disable cryptographic erasure of the storage device by cryptographic erase operations received subsequent to receipt of the command to disable cryptographic erasure of the storage device and prior to a second power-on event or a reboot event that occurs subsequent to the first power-on event.

A system for preventing malicious cryptographic erasure of storage devices, comprising:

• a storage device comprising circuitry to implement cryptographic erasure;
• one or more processors;
• at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing program instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the processors to perform:
• determining that a first power-on event has occurred;
• and
• performing, in response to determining that the first power-on event has occurred, a power-on initialization sequence, including:
• determining whether a cryptographic erase operation directed to the storage device that was requested and authorized prior to detection of the first power-on event and while the information handling system was in a state in which requests to perform cryptographic erase operations on the storage device are not acted on is pending, wherein an authorized cryptographic erase operation is a cryptographic erase operation that has been determined to have been received from an authenticated entity;
• and
• sending, to the storage device in response to a determination that there is no pending cryptographic erase operation that was requested and authorized prior to detection of the first power-on event and while the information handling system was in a state in which requests to perform cryptographic erase operations on the storage device are not acted on, a command to disable cryptographic erasure of the storage device by cryptographic erase operations received subsequent to receipt of the command to disable cryptographic erasure of the storage device and prior to a second power-on event or a reboot event that occurs subsequent to the first power-on event.