Imaging device including wear leveling for non-volatile memory and secure erase of data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8964237-B2
Application number	US-201313930151-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 28, 2013
Priority date	Jun 28, 2013
Publication date	Feb 24, 2015
Grant date	Feb 24, 2015

Abstract

Methods and apparatus teach wear leveling non-volatile memory and secure erasure of data. A computing device receives data to be stored. The data is encrypted, including generation of encryption/decryption key(s). The key(s) are stored in either non-volatile or volatile memory according to a plurality of classification schemes. In a first scheme, key(s) are stored in non-volatile memory and will be retained in the event of a power cycle of the computing device. Otherwise, key(s) stored in volatile memory will be lost upon a power cycle. Upon issuance of a key destruction command, key(s) in the non-volatile memory are sanitized or erased, but the underlying encrypted data need not be erased since no key(s) exist that can recover original content. These techniques limit erasure commands to the non-volatile memory which prolongs its service life. Further embodiments note techniques in imaging devices conducting imaging operations, such as printing or scanning.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for wear leveling non-volatile memory and securely erasing data in an imaging device having volatile and non-volatile memory, comprising:
receiving for processing an imaging job having data to be stored;
identifying whether the imaging job needs to persist or not over a power cycle of the imaging device;
encrypting the data, including generating one or more keys;
storing the encrypted data in a memory of choice; and
storing the one or…

Assignees

• Lexmark Int Inc

Inventors

• Cochran Howard Charles
• Willett Bryan Scott
• Klein Michael James

Classifications

• G06F21/608 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06K15/1828 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F2221/2143

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04L9/0891

  Electricity · mapped topic