In cryptography, zeroisation (also spelled zeroization) is the practice of erasing sensitive parameters (electronically stored data, cryptographic keys, and CSPs) from a cryptographic module to prevent their disclosure if the equipment is captured. This is generally accomplished by altering or deleting the contents to prevent recovery of the data. When encryption was performed by mechanical devices, this would often mean changing all the machine’s settings to some fixed, meaningless value, such as zero. On machines with letter settings rather than numerals, the letter ‘O’ was often used instead. Some machines had a button or lever for performing this process in a single step. Zeroisation would typically be performed at the end of an encryption session to prevent accidental disclosure of the keys, or immediately when there was a risk of capture by an adversary.

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