Your hard drive would wear out very quickly if it reset the bits of a deleted file to all 0s every time you deleted a file.Īnother process devised with hard drive lifespan in mind is “wear leveling,” a firmware routine that saves each new file in a random location on the drive. Hard drives are designed to optimize hardware integrity, not security. This might seem like a bad idea, but it makes sense. In other words, the original state of the bits (1s and 0s) of the deleted file are left intact, and forensic tools can recover the files. When you use one of these methods, all your hard drive does is mark the area where the deleted file used to be as available for new data to be written there. The most often-used processes for deleting files - clicking “delete” in the operating system or using the “rm” command - are not secure. Once you have absorbed this lesson, you will be able to part with your hard drives safely.Īs you might have deduced, the usual way of deleting doesn’t always cut it. Because I adopted Linux primarily with security in mind, this is one of the first things I learned. It’s almost always better to make a modest stride than let uncertainty keep you from starting.įortunately, there are a few basic techniques that greatly benefit users at all levels, and knowing how to securely wipe your hard drive in Linux is one of them. As daunting as securing your Linux system might seem, one thing to remember is that every extra step makes a difference.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |