Questions tagged [deletion]
Secure deletion of data.
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Why are drives overwritten three times when being disposed of? [duplicate]
I am looking at the secure disposal of old flash drives, and one of the standards I have come across says that they should be overwritten three times. Why is one time not enough? I assume doing the ...
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shred - different device size
When I need to properly wipe a harddrive, I tend to use shred on the whole device, i.e. pointing shred to the /dev/sdX without regard to particular partitions; however I noticed that the device size ...
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What method could a white-box attacker use to track the deletion of memory / files?
A rather theoretical question: Assuming there is memory with a malware inside it. The malware's goal is to detect if a legit application is about to delete contents of the memory.
If recognized, the ...
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What is the difference between wiping vs deleting? [duplicate]
I was reading about the Mask malware on Kaspersky. And they mentioned this:
“Several reasons make us believe this could be a nation-state
sponsored campaign. First of all, we observed a very high ...
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Does microwaving a CD erase it?
I just read the question: Does microwaving a hard drive erase it? and now I am curious too... does microwaving a CD (or for that matter, DVD, or blu-ray) erase it? My initial thought is that some ...
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Does microwaving a hard drive erase it?
Kind of a silly question, but I'm genuinely curious: (in part because I recently saw several questions that refer to "nuking" a hard drive...) what would a microwave DO to an HDD? Would it erase data ...
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How do I securely erase USB flash drives?
I would like to know if there is a way to securely erase USB flash drives without a chance to recover data from it once it has been erased. I know, that programms like DBAN can be used to securely ...
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What is the difference between ATA Secure Erase and Security Erase? How can I ensure they worked?
I'd like to wipe a stack of drives (spinning and SSD) securely. I'm familiar with the ATA Secure Erase (SE) command via hdparm, but I'm not sure if I should use the Security Erase (SE+) command ...
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Securely wipe external drive with Windows only [duplicate]
Consider following 2 disk wipe procedures, using only vanilla Windows installation:
First do a quick-format to make the disk appear empty, then do one of these:
Just do full format of the disk.
...
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Protect partition from formatting
How can i protect my Linux and Windows partitions from being wiped,from a windows installation CD,with password?
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What is the security significance of Keyboard and Touchpad controller chips?
In this article from Privacy International, it indicates that when GCHQ undertook the task of destroying sensitive data on system belonging to the Guardian newspaper, in addition to the Storage media, ...
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Tools for Verifying Secure Deletion [closed]
It is recommended to verify the zeroing-out was done properly when you try to secure delete a HDD. From this post, some drives with firmware bugs prevent secure erase from working properly.
What are ...
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Securely erase data from a flash drive vs hard disk [duplicate]
I'm studying for an exam, that's why I don't need software for that purpose (which is what other questions I found on this topic provide) but an explanation.
The concrete questions I'm trying to ...
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How to prevent user from recovering my iPhone data?
If I'm about to sell my iPhone 5, is there a way to make sure that the buyer won't be able to recover anything from my data? Both data that has been recently deleted and data that has been deleted ...
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What are the benefits of having multiple overwriting patterns for secure deletion? [duplicate]
When installing a new AIX server, there is a possibility to use several patterns for secure deletion.
My question: Is it necessary to use several patterns? What is the benefit from having several ...
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Decrypting a Truecrypt system - how to make deleted files unrecoverable? [duplicate]
If I have full disk encryption on my computer and want to decrypt it, but want to delete senstive documents before decrypting, how do I ensure they are unrecoverable post-decryption?
Edit: I suspect ...
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Can you securely wipe an SSD by filling the remaining space with bogus data? [duplicate]
It's been established that, thanks to our good friend Mr. Wear Leveler, wiping data from an SSD is very difficult. I understand that the one thing you don't want to do is actually attempt to shred ...
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Is there any virus that deletes Personal Folder? [closed]
I noticed that some special folders of my ex-HDD have been deleted. 'Personal' is one of them.
Is there any virus that does that?
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Ensure data doesn't linger after being deleted
I'm trying to make a service that keeps as little data on its users as possible. To that end, I want to make sure that someone using forensic tools won't gain any more information than I would by ...
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Do any web browsers create cached copies of local HTML files?
Suppose that we create a sensitive file as a HTML document, and then view that file with a web browser such as Firefox, or other.
Is it possible that the file is treated as if it were a document ...
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ATA security erase on SSD
Is it possible to recovery data from SSD, that was secure erased (https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase), by IT or professional data recovery company?
Does this type of erasing reduce ...
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How secure is the Windows 8 "Reset your PC" function?
Windows 8 has a feature to "Reset your PC" so that if someone needs to give their computer away, the recipient won't be able to recover data.
How secure is it?
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Is it nescecary to wipe and reset the MBR when laptop changes owners even if full disk encryption is used?
Where I'm currently working we use full disk encryption and after a laptop transfer owners we use a secure erasure program. This is quite time consuming and I'm wondering is it necessary? For the disk ...
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What method of secure erase is sufficient for MacBook Pro SSD Drives? [duplicate]
I would like to securely erase the hard drive of a SSD in a MacBook Pro. The Disk Utility does not give me the option to wipe this drive even when I boot into the System Partition. (it is greyed out)...
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Secure wiping of EEPROM and flash memory
Older magnetic storage exhibited some data remanence, so a recommendation emerged to wipe data by overwriting it multiple times with varying patterns — the “Gutmann wipe”. More recent hard disk ...
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How to properly delete all data from cell phones?
Lately I've been thinking to get rid of some old smartphones; among them an Android device and a Blackberry. Not selling or recycling them is the ideal solution, however, I still would like to know ...
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Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile
I was reading about Windows Local Policy of "Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile". I need some clarification on this brief policy description:
What do it mean by operating system that allow ...
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Disk Erasing Security - Odd Number of Writes
As one can find in the Disk Utility/Erase/Security Options section, there are two options for erasing disks securely - zero out 7 times or zero out 35 times. Where these numbers come from?
duros
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Overwriting hard drive to securely delete a file?
I am working on a computer that I am not allowed to install new software on. It does not have secure delete software installed. Suppose I have a file (or files) that are sensitive that I'd like to ...
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Prove that you deleted the file
Is it possible to prove a date that you Deleted a file through the recycle bin? I delete a folder of pictures 2 months ago and somebody is asking to prove that I did it.
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Secure erase iOS devices
All iOS devices from the iPhone 3GS have a hardware encryption chip, right?
When you erase an iOS device with the "Erase All Content and Settings" menu item or via Remote Wipe the encryption keys are ...
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What's a good secure file deletion software?
I've used cipher \w which is built into Windows to overwrite free space, but I'm looking for a tool that securely deletes files which have not been deleted yet. It would be a plus (but certainly not ...
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securely destroying data on an external hard drive [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How can I reliably erase all information on a hard drive?
I purchased an external hard drive and have been saving various things including system backups to it. I got it a ...
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A computing environment that saves no data
I want to use a laptop which doesn’t save any data, history, passwords anywhere in it. All state information should be destroyed once it is turned off or rebooted, without removing my ability to use ...
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How far beyond using Shred should I go when deleting files? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How can I reliably erase all information on a hard drive?
I'm looking to securely erase my files. Is shred the best option besides ditching the hardware? To what lengths ...
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Writing file shredder
I want to write a simple file shredder in c++, i.e. a program that deletes a file so that it is not recoverable. Would the following be a secure and correct way to do that?
(1) Open the file with
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Can wiped SSD data be recovered?
I was reading another post on destroying IDE drives, and how you could remove data, wipe it, or just destroy the drive. The removed data would still be there in some state, although not easily ...
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Is running an erase tool after an OS install sufficient to ensure no data from the old install is recoverable?
How secure do you consider this process?
A drive has data from a previous OS installation.
A new OS installation is made on the drive, and Heidi Eraser is run on free space.
What are the chances of ...
JohnCharles117
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Why is writing zeros (or random data) over a hard drive multiple times better than just doing it once?
Lots of different programs, such as Darik's Boot and Nuke, let you write over a hard drive multiple times under the guise of it being more secure than just doing it once. Why?
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How can you remove your presence from the Internet? [duplicate]
How can you remove your presence from the Internet?
For example from social networks, from email servers, from forums etc. Problem is how records of you are identified on the internet?
We have well ...
user5932
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Can someone tell if you delete deleted files?
I am aware that to delete something completely we will have to use a program that over-writes the deleted file such that it is unrecoverable.
Is there anyway to tell that this has happened? Or is the ...
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How can files be deleted in a HIPAA-compliant way?
Any material I've come up with for data destruction standards relate to completely wiping (ATA Secure Erase) and physically destroying hard drives, but I haven't been able to find much about standards ...
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How can I reliably erase all information on a hard drive?
As storage technologies change over time, using different encodings and remappings to deal with sector errors, the best way to permanently erase/wipe/shred data changes also.
Methods for flash drives ...
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Is it enough to only wipe a flash drive once?
According to the documentation for the "diskscrb" command for wiping conventional hard drives: http://www.forensics-intl.com/diskscrb.html
"Conforms to and exceeds the Government ...
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Is it a security issue that Thunderbird only logically deletes emails?
I have several e-mail accounts configured in Thunderbird. I just wanted to move an e-mail from one of my e-mail accounts [A] Trash folder to another accounts [B] Inbox folder. Because the moved e-mail ...
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How do you erase a Blackberry without having direct access to the server?
I have a Blackberry with no access to the BIS or BES server that managed it.
How does one erase and reset the device to defaults?
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I'm leaving my job and want to erase as many personal details etc. as possible; any tips?
Obviously this is very open-ended. But, I'm just paranoid about people going through everything on my laptop after I leave my job. Here are the things I'm planning to do:
Completely wipe all browser ...
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Encrypting a disk that has stuff on it?
Ok, so a pretty big disk ~1-2TB (90% full, multiple partitions + 2 operating systems on it), needs to be encrypted and zeroed-out, and it's a bit too much data for backing it all up before encryption. ...
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