BCWipe: Securely erase data from magnetic and solid-state memory

BCWipe for Windows

BCWipe features

• BCWipe software provides the following basic commands and options:

  • Delete with wiping: Using this command available in the context (right click) menus of the „My computer“ window, we can delete and wipe a folder or a file, or a group of folders and files.

  • Wipe free disk space: Using this command (available in the context menus of the „My computer“ window), we can completely remove all traces of previously deleted files.

  • Wipe Swap File: The Swap File is a Windows system file that is used for virtual memory support. If you are working on a file or document (even one that has been encrypted by a powerful cryptographic software), Windows can copy all or part of it in an open unencrypted form to the Swap file on your hard drive. Encryption keys, passwords, and other secret information can also be „swapped“ to hard disk.

  • Wipe Empty Directory Entries: The file system records the names and attributes of files to a special area (so called 'directory entries' for FAT and MFT for NTFS). When a file is deleted the corresponding directory entry is modified by the file system, which makes it invisible to windows and you. But most of the information still exists and the name and attributes can be restored using any data recovery utility. BCWipe shreds directory entries and MFT so that the information can never be restored.

  • Wipe File Slacks: A file slack is the disk space from the end of a file up to end of the last cluster used by that file. You can turn file slacks, wiping on or off before running BCWipe commands.

• The following additional utilities are available:

  • Wipe an entire hard drive: This function deletes all information from hard disk drives. This enables you to sell or dispose of your computer/hard disk drives, or re-assign it to another user, safe in the knowledge that your previously stored information has gone for ever. The BCWipe system includes the command-line BCWipePD v.1 (BCWipe Physical Drive) utility which can be used for all physical sectors on a hard disk. Since September, 2005 BCWipe users can download BCWipePD v.2.01 as a separate product. BCWipePD v.2.01 is more powerful, it is more faster and easier in use than BCWipePD v.1.

  • BCWipe Task Manager: Offers the user the utmost flexibility in choosing what to wipe, when to wipe it, and how to wipe it. Wipes your Internet Cache, Cookies, History, etc. Removes lists of recently used files from the File Menus of specific programs. Wipes the entire Swap File.

  • Swap File Encrypting utility: BCWipe allows you to encrypt the Swap File providing you with more data security.

  • Hexadecimal File Viewer: Using the Hexadecimal File Viewer you can examine contents of files after wiping. The Viewer is useful for investigating the quality of the wiping process.

New features in version 3

1. BCWipe v.3 allows you to wipe data using predefined DoD 5200.28-STD and Peter Gutmann wiping schemes and now includes the Wiping Scheme Editor utility to edit and view the number of wiping passes as well as binary patterns used in every pass. Now you can customize the whole wiping process on your computer.

2. Swap File Encrypting Utility added.

3. BCWipe v.3 includes a „Task Manager“ enabling the user to schedule some wiping tasks automatically.

4. Automatic wiping of Recently Used Files List. You can configure BCWipe Task Manager to remove all references to recently used files and folders or only those in applications that you specify. For example, you can configure BCWipe to clear the list of recently opened Excel documents. If another user opens Excel the list of recently used files that normally appears in the File Menu will be empty. This is a useful feature in workgroups where sensitive accounting or personal information may be accessed.

5. Wipe Special System Folders at Start Up. Windows creates Special System Folders for storing cookies, temporary Internet files and so on. Such folders cannot be deleted in the usual way, because the operating system keeps them locked. You can configure BCWipe Task Manager to automatically wipe selected folders when they are not locked (when operating system starts up).

6. Hibernation File wiping. The Hibernation File supports the transition of the computer to the hibernation state. At that time the system copies all the data stored in RAM, including opened secret documents, to the Hibernation File. To avoid a possible security leak you can configure BCWipe to wipe the Hibernation File regularly.

7. BCWipe v.3 recognizes and properly shreds alternate data streams in files, created on NTFS disks in MS Windows XP/2000/NT.

8. The wiping process can be configured to perform additional actions, for example shut the computer down, creating a log file or log off the current user.

9. Improved wiping performance in BCWipe v.3. It now works at least 10% faster than previous version.

10. Ability to Skip files and directories which do not require treatment during „Wipe file slacks“ process.

BCWipe for UNIX

BCWipePD features

• Destroy contents of whole hard disk drives, including boot records, partition tables, operating system files, filesystem structures and user files.
• Can be run on any hardware platform with x386 and 64-bit AMD/Intel architecture, regardless of operating system installed on the computer.
• Contents of hard drives are wiped regardless of filesystem used to format the drives (FAT, NTFS, HPFS, ext2, ext3, reiserfs or other).
• Can wipe all hard disk drives on the computer including the one where operating system is installed.
• Provide a high performance of shredding data. On modern hard drives performance of 1-pass wiping can be 30-60 MB/s and more. So 7-pass U.S. DoD wiping performance will be 4-8 MB/s.
• Can wipe IDE, SCSI, SATA hard disk drives, removable disk devices (USB hard drives, USB flash memory).
• Allows the user to customize wiping scheme according to U.S. Department of Defense recommendations to destroy data (DoD 5200.28-STD) or according to Peter Gutmann 35-pass wiping scheme, or use your own customized wiping scheme.
  
• Can wipe several hard drives in parallel.
• Recognizes and can wipe Host Protected Area (HPA) on hard disk drives.
• Defines number of sectors hidden by Device Configuration Overlay (DCO) functionality appeared since ATA-6 standard.
• Allows wiping the DCO hidden sectors.