Skip main navigation

New offer! Get 30% off your first 2 months of Unlimited Monthly. Start your subscription for just £35.99 £24.99. New subscribers only T&Cs apply

Find out more

Protecting your system – file shredding

File shredding is the equivalent of shredding a paper document and it makes sure your old files are gone for good.
6.7
So the next tool I want to demonstrate is one which is named File Shredder. So it’s been developed as a file-safe, reliable tool to shred company files digitally. So in the past, or maybe even now in your workplace, when we’re dealing with files or paperwork which we want to get rid of, we use a paper shredder to get rid of those. Now, in the digital world, where we’re dealing with digital files, we have a similar approach. But it’s more of a digital shredding approach, so electronically getting rid of particular files. So I’ve got a particular tool here called File Shredder. Put simply, it’s a very simple, free tool which is very effective.
55.2
So if we just go into the settings, for a moment, you’ll see all the different algorithms there we can use, which come into play to make sure our files get completely shredded and completely obliterated. So the particular default secure algorithm here is the Department of Defence algorithm there. It’s very strong and suitable for this. Essentially, most of the time what happens here is it will take a particular file, and in order to get rid of it, it will just write over the top of it a multitude of times. So essentially, what it gets to at the end is something completely different to what actually we started with to begin with.
94.7
And that file is going to be very hard to be recovered. And this is going to be particularly useful in your workplace, say, where you’re trying to get rid of confidential files that were very important, and you don’t want anyone to see. And it’s particularly important because in most workplaces, where there replace systems or maybe they have to be upgraded or something like that. So what happens with those files we store on the drive? If there’s any local or any on the server drive, for instance, how do we ensure that someone who ends up with that drive when it’s refurbished, for instance, can’t just recover all those files? So this is one particular way. So let’s just demo this.
143.9
We’ll go into our financial documents again. Let’s pick out a couple of these. And all you have to do is just drag them onto the screen here.
156
We’ve got two financial documents we want to get rid of there. We can basically just use the ‘Shred files’ now. Simple as that, they’re shredded. Very strong algorithm used there to ensure that those files can’t be recovered. That one’s pretty simple. Done with that. It’s a simple but really powerful tool.

File shredding is the equivalent of shredding a paper document and it makes sure your old files are gone for good.

Even if you delete a file, it can still be retrieved and accessed as the data is still in the storage medium. If you throw out or sell your equipment, deleted files can still be recovered.

In this video, Dr Nick Patterson demonstrates how to use the tool File Shredder to permanently obliterate old or unwanted files.

Your task

Watch the video and think about how you might use a file shredder. Are there guidelines or a process you can put in place that mandates what and when files need to be shredded? Share your ideas in the comments.

This article is from the free online

Cyber Security for Small and Medium Enterprises: Identifying Threats and Preventing Attacks

Created by
FutureLearn - Learning For Life

Reach your personal and professional goals

Unlock access to hundreds of expert online courses and degrees from top universities and educators to gain accredited qualifications and professional CV-building certificates.

Join over 18 million learners to launch, switch or build upon your career, all at your own pace, across a wide range of topic areas.

Start Learning now