Which method of evidence destruction involves incinerating the storage medium?

Incinerating the storage medium is categorized as physical destruction because it involves a method that physically alters the medium to render it unusable and irretrievable. This method is particularly effective for sensitive data because incineration ensures that the material is completely destroyed at a molecular level, preventing any possibility of recovery.

Other methods listed, such as wiping utilities, software deletion, and secure erase, do not involve transforming or destroying the physical medium itself. Wiping utility and secure erase refer to erasing data using software tools, which may still leave remnants of data intact on the device. Software deletion involves simply removing references to the data, which can often be recovered with the right tools. Therefore, physical destruction, through incineration, stands out as the most thorough and definitive method for ensuring that data cannot be recovered.