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How To Securely Delete Files In Linux

by admin on 07/11/09 at 12:55 pm

If you are using a file system such as EXT3, ReiserFS, JFS, or XFS you cannot securely delete your files without using an encrypted file system. These are what is known as journaling file systems and they record all changes that occur in your files. Every record insertion/deletion/update is logged. This replication of data is useful for disaster recovery, however, it means that even if you delete a file, there is still a record of it in your system.

To get round this security problem, you can:

• use a non-journaling file system like ext2, and use the wipe command.
• encrypt your file system using a utility such as Scramdisk (Twofish and AES are a couple of good ones). You can also use the wipe command with your encrypted file system for extra security