Secure Delete is a way to make sure that when you delete a file it cannot be recovered. Understanding it is important to protect sensitive data properly. Deleting a file in Windows doesn't actually delete the data. When you delete a file in Windows explorer, the file is just moved to recycle bin instead of permanent deletion. Hence your deleted files are saved in the recycle bin till the recycle bin is too full or you delete it yourself. Even after deleting the recycle bin there is no guarantee that the file is deleted forever. Instead, the computer just made the file invisible to the user, and marked the part of the disk drive that it is stored on as "empty," meaning that it can be overwritten with new data. The deleted file can be overwritten within weeks, months or years. It is like moving out of an apartment by only taking name off of the door. Until someone moves in and replaces their own, all your stuff is still inside and available to anyone who knows how to look for it.
Here comes the concept of Secure Delete. Deleting the file securely will just overwrite the deleted file on the spot and is not visible to the observer. It’s like emptying your apartment completely before someone stays in it. If someone comes finding you in the apartment, he will not be able to know that earlier you stayed in it. Deleting securely takes more time than normal deletion but it assures that the content can’t be recovered.
Just overwriting the file also doesn’t help because where the operating system writes the data is not under your control. Overwriting can be done by creating a new file on hard disk, delete the old file or rename the new file to old file. This process is not under user’s control. This is completely in hands of the operating system. Hence if you are planning to store confidential and highly secret things on your computer, you need the utility that deletes the data securely. It guarantees that the space the original file occupied on the hard disk is overwritten with other data.
There is one more factor to take into consideration. Hard disks are made up of magnetic material. And due to the property of magnetic material it might be possible to recover the overwritten data. Recovering data in this way is trivial which requires special tools and techniques, lot of money but it can be done. The solution to this is to ensure that your Secure Delete utility allows overwriting data multiple times.
Here comes the concept of Secure Delete. Deleting the file securely will just overwrite the deleted file on the spot and is not visible to the observer. It’s like emptying your apartment completely before someone stays in it. If someone comes finding you in the apartment, he will not be able to know that earlier you stayed in it. Deleting securely takes more time than normal deletion but it assures that the content can’t be recovered.
Just overwriting the file also doesn’t help because where the operating system writes the data is not under your control. Overwriting can be done by creating a new file on hard disk, delete the old file or rename the new file to old file. This process is not under user’s control. This is completely in hands of the operating system. Hence if you are planning to store confidential and highly secret things on your computer, you need the utility that deletes the data securely. It guarantees that the space the original file occupied on the hard disk is overwritten with other data.
There is one more factor to take into consideration. Hard disks are made up of magnetic material. And due to the property of magnetic material it might be possible to recover the overwritten data. Recovering data in this way is trivial which requires special tools and techniques, lot of money but it can be done. The solution to this is to ensure that your Secure Delete utility allows overwriting data multiple times.
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