Need That File Really and Truly Gone? Try BCWipe - grimesmorningard

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Swap file encoding
Pliable wiping schemes
Transparent wiping

Cons

Some interface issues

Our Verdict

Completely erase files from your hard drive by overwriting them with random information.

BCWipe 5.0 is a suite of tools and utilities that help supply security measures by making bound that deleted files are truly gone. It's more often than not known that "deleting" a file in Windows doesn't truly erase it; what's less well known is how easy it is to recover files, or partial files, regular afterward the Recycle Bin has been emptied and information technology seems the file is spent for right. BCWipe ($40, 25-day free trial with limitations) works by overwriting the space erstwhile occupied by a file cabinet with various schema of ergodic data, as per the user's desire.

BCWipe 5.0 screenshot — BCWipe gives you a lot of see over what's eliminated and how to arrange it.

This is one of BCWipe's strengths. It includes a large numeral of wiping protocols, and allows the user to define their own, mixing and twinned random and cyclical data over a user-defined series of passes. The argue for this is that it is considered possible for a determined attacker with memory access to a physical hard disc to scan magnetic "echoes" of existing data; selective information wiped only once may be susceptible to convalescence, and there are many different protocols which have evolved to help ensure this is unachievable. (As with all things in the field of computers, this is an domain subject to much controversy and debate; some experts feel more modern drives, with very high information densities, are almost immune to such recovery and a single pass of unselected data is saving sufficient.) Whatsoever your ad hominem druthers operating room corporate authorisation, you ought to Be fit to find or create the correct communications protocol to forgather information technology.

BCWipe 5.0 too includes a powerful, but gentle-to-use, scheduling creature, allowing you to schedule wipes of specific files or folders, at desired times, erst OR on a agenda, and to set every the options possible for each task. Wiping of free space is one noteworthy task, as it will overwrite areas marked as "blank", which may contain data which was not wiped securely. Windows constantly creates and erases impermanent files, so symmetric if you deleted "1stQuarterBudget.xls" with wiping, a temp file containing much of the data may relieve lurk undetected on your severely magnetic disc, even though Windows deleted it.

This is an area where BCWipe 5.0 offers a very useful characteristic: filmy wiping. This feature film intercepts every last Osmium level calls to delete files, including the myriad temporary files created and lost during system operation (and a look at BCWipe's log, with this feature active, will show you how many there are), and then wipes them. For the sake of speed, the default is to use a single random pass, but this dismiss be changed. Further, specific folders and/or file types rear be excluded, which may be desirable for some auditing or backup purposes. Speed is, as expected, fairly analog with passes and the actions taken in each pass. Wiping a 1 gig file out with a single liberty chit took 43 seconds for me, and wiping a replicate of the identical file using the DOD 5220 method acting, which had three passes and did more on each go past, took 181 seconds.

Even up if you use full-disk encryption (as I do), a program like BCWipe can be useful when dealing with the terror of someone conjunctive to your computer while it is functioning, or otherwise gaining access to unencrypted data.

BCWipe's only significant flaw is that the interface can be a little disorienting. At that place are several divided tools–the scheduler and the transparent wipe utility–which butt be launched from a third puppet, the chief executable. When you initially create a scheduled task, the default time for creation is "right now," which means, if you don't change IT, when you save the tax to the scheduler, it will Be marked as "time has already passed."

If you must uninstall and reinstall BCWipe, do so with care. I practiced several issues getting BCWipe 5 to correctly install due to the remnants of an older version that had been partly removed and left invalid registry entries after several disk swaps and remappings; these are issues most users will non contend with. To their credit, Jetico was generally quick to respond and to provide step-by-step directions to grapple with the issues that arose.

BCWipe's trial lasts for 25 years, and only permits one-pass random wiping. This allows you to test the scheduler and other options, and get a feel for for BCWipe's suitability for your surety needs.

–Ian Harac