Always Remember to Wipe Deleted Files

Aug 19
07:20

2008

Sam Miller

Sam Miller

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Why is there a need to wipe deleted files? This is needed to protect your business from potential hackers all over the Internet.

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The computer is a very handy tool in the office setting. Over time,Always Remember to Wipe Deleted Files Articles you would surely accumulate hundreds of files, and a large bulk of this could very well contain sensitive financial information. When this happens, the logical thing to do would be to delete the files that contain such information from your system as soon as these files are no longer needed. This way, you will not put the files at risk to hacking and infiltration from the many online perpetrators all over the information superhighway. However, it is not really enough to just delete your files from your hard drive. This is because the space that these files used to occupy still exists. This is just about what hackers need to retrieve the files, with the help of sophisticated equipment. Thus, the wiser thing to do is to wipe deleted files after deleting them.

There are applications that you can find on the web that do just that: wipe the files that have been deleted from your system. The two of the most popular include the file shredder and the disk wiper. Both have the same primary goal, and this is to leave no traces of whatsoever files that have been deleted from the system. However, it is the mechanism that these applications employ that differ.

The file shredder works pretty much like your typical paper shredder. While your paper shredder physically shreds any document fed into the machine, the file shredder digitally shreds any file or document that is processed by the application. With the deleted files digitally shred into bits and fragments, it would become very difficult for even the most skillful of hackers to piece these fragments back together to come up with a coherent whole. This is the advantage that file shredders have over the simple act of deletion.

The disk wiper, on the other hand, wipes whatever deleted files there may be. Literally speaking, it is not actually the deleted file that is being wiped out here. Rather, it is the space that the file used to occupy that is being wiped out. But how does the wiping out process occur? What happens here is the memory space that is left is overwritten a number of times, until the space is no longer in existence. With this simple yet effective wiping out process, hackers will no longer have access to whatever files you delete from your system.

The Internet is filled with so many of these applications, and they come with a lot of features as well. Choosing which one to go with just might be daunting, so the wise thing to do here is to weigh out your needs. You can then look for the application that has the features that can meet those needs. A word of advice: go with the application that offers password protection and data encryption. There are indeed suite packages that offer more than the ability to wipe deleted files. After all, this is a worthy investment all on its own so you should go with the impressive package.