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Contents > Product Overview
Active@ KillDisk User's Guide
1 Product Overview
This chapter gives an overview of Active@ KillDisk for Hard
Drives application.
Active@ KillDisk for Hard
Drives is a powerful utility that will:
• Wipe confidential data from unused space on your hard drive
• Erase data from partitions or from an entire hard disk
• Destroy data permanently
Wiping the logical drive's deleted data does not delete existing files and
folders. It processes all unoccupied drive space so that data recovery of
previously deleted files becomes impossible. Installed applications and existing
data are not touched by this process. Active@ KillDisk wipes unused data residue
from file slack space, unused sectors, and unused space in MTF records or root
records.
When you erase data with Active@ KillDisk you destroy data permanently,
conforming to any one of six international standards or your own custom
settings.
Wiping drive space or erasing data can take a long time, so perform these
operations when you are prepared to wait. For example, these operations may be
run overnight.
1.1 Erasing Confidential Data
Modern methods of data encryption are deterring unwanted network attackers
from extracting sensitive data from stored database files. Attackers who want to
retrieve confidential data are becoming more resourceful by looking into places
where data might be stored temporarily. A hard drive on a local network node,
for example, can be a prime target for such a search. One avenue of attack is
the recovery of data from residual data on a discarded hard disk drive. When
deleting confidential data from hard drives, removable floppies or USB devices,
it is important to extract all traces of the data so that recovery is not
possible.
Most official guidelines around disposing of confidential magnetic data do
not take into account the depth of today’s recording densities, nor the methods
used by the operating system when removing data. For example, the Windows DELETE
command merely changes the file name so that the operating system will not look
for the file. The situation with NTFS is similar.
Removal of confidential personal information or company trade secrets in the
past might have used the FORMAT command or the DOS FDISK command. Ordinarily,
using these procedures give users a sense of confidence that the data has been
completely removed.
When using the FORMAT command, Windows displays a message like
this:
Important:
Formatting a disk removes all information from the disk.
The FORMAT utility actually creates new FAT and ROOT tables,
leaving all previous data on the disk untouched. Moreover, an image of the
replaced FAT and ROOT tables are stored, so that the UNFORMAT command can be
used to restore them.
As well, FDISK merely cleans the Partition Table (located in the drive's
first sector) and does not touch anything else.
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