Dispose Exchange Emails

Cognitive Toolkit Version: V2.10 and greater

Cognitive Toolkit Operation: Dispose

When using the Cognitive Toolkit to dispose of Exchange emails, there are two possible actions that can be assigned to the Dispose operation: a hard disposal or a soft disposal.

Hard Disposal vs Soft Disposal

A hard disposal is the default action when using the Dispose operation for Exchange emails in Cognitive Toolkit V2.10 and higher. The most secure way to dispose of sensitive data is a hard disposal. This means that the files being disposed of are immediately and permanently deleted, helping to minimize risks and protect your organization from a serious data breach.

Soft disposal means that the files being disposed of will be moved into a deleted items folder rather than being permanently deleted. When it comes to effective data disposal methods, out of sight and out of mind is not a recommended method for disposing of the sensitive data that can be found in Exchange emails. This can also leave companies at risk of violating data disposition policies.

Configuration

Hard disposal (Default)

The dispose actions can be configured via the dispose key for Exchange. Located within the Cognitive Toolkit configuration file, the default (hard disposal) dispose key for Exchange appears as follows:

CODE

<!--Exchange-->
    <!-- value: hard (default - permanently delete) or soft (moved to deleted items)  -->
    <add key="ExchangeDeleteMode" value="hard" />

Soft disposal

It is possible, but not recommended, to configure the dispose key, located within the Cognitive Toolkit configuration file, for a soft disposal. To do so, simply change the value in the dispose key for Exchange to “soft” and save your changes:

CODE


<!--Exchange-->
    <!-- value: hard (permanently delete) or soft (moved to deleted items)  -->
    <add key="ExchangeDeleteMode" value="soft" />

This will ensure that items being disposed of will be moved to a deleted items folder, rather than being immediately and permanently deleted.