The Right Way To Remove Recent Files By Sam Miller At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

It is inevitable for any computer user to be deleting files every once in a while. This is highly expected especially when you are dealing with files that contain classified information. These files may contain credit card details or social security information of certain people. This is why it is very important to delete these files as soon as they are no longer needed. This way, there would be no way for any hacker to infiltrate your system and get hold of this information. So, the deletion of these files should be enough, right? Unfortunately, it is not. What’s even sadder is the fact that not a lot of people are aware that mere deletion is not enough at all.

When you remove recent files through deletion, the files do disappear from its source folder or drive. However, the memory that was once assigned to these files is still in existence. As long as the memory exists, there is every chance for hackers to infiltrate your system and retrieve the contents of the deleted files piece by piece. There is sophisticated software that can easily do this for hackers as well. Thus, mere deletion is not really enough.

A lot of people would suggest a reformat of your hard drive. Reformatting does go an extra step when you compare it to just deletion. However, this is still not the most efficient method in the market at all. Reformatting just erases the address tables of your computer. This would indeed make the piecing process of the deleted files’ components more difficult. Still, this does not mean that it is no longer doable. The more experienced hackers can still piece these components together, as long as they know what they are doing. Thus, there is a need to go an extra step still.

One such method is the disk wiper. By the name itself, there is the act of wiping involved here. It is actually the memory space once assigned to the deleted files that is being wiped out here. The wiping out process is done by the overwriting of the memory as many times as needed. This way, the memory space would no longer contain remnants of the deleted files. You may think that you do not really need to get disk wipers because the creation of files can do the overwriting of memory space all on its own. Yes, you can choose to do this. However, you would have to create a lot of files so that the particular memory space can then be overwritten accordingly. Until such time that enough overwriting is done, you run the risk of the deleted files falling into the wrong hands.

Another method is to get file shredder software. What happens here is that the deleted file is digitally shred into bits and pieces before they are disposed into oblivion. This way, it would be very difficult for hackers to put back the shredded file piece by piece.

There are many disk wipers and file shredders that you can choose from in the market. The wise decision here is to go for the application that has the most features that can help you accordingly.

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