USB Flash card security

[Kooldino]

AFAIK, usb memory sticks use a FAT.

I ASSume that when you delete a file from it, it deletes it just like it would any other FAT system, and just screw up the file entry in the FAT.

Are there any small freeware programs that can be run periodically to write zeros to unused space?

[Wombat]

Tons of them. I think even cygwin has a delete utility.

[az]

Attention: Flash memory has fairly limited write cycles (~1000000, IIRC). This is usually circumvented by the flash controller writing to different positions in the memory, and replacing failing cells from a hidden reserve.

This is especially important when you think about using flash memory as swap, running programs on it, or doing anything else actively on it. Flash is a storage medium, not a work medium like HDs or RAM.

AZ

[Lucid]

Eraser

[MultimediaMan]

They use FAT32...there is almost no security at all on them...there are several file recovery programs out there that can reconstruct even a formatted Flashcard/USB Drive fairly easily with nearly 100% reliability.

I have been making good money using a $30.00 recovery tool to fix corrupted CF and SD Cards from people's Digital cameras.

So if you really want to kill the data on one you will have to use something like Eraser or Flashkiller.

[Kooldino]

Ooh, link to said program?

[VJ]

Euhm, perhaps this is my ignorance, but is there anything preventing one to format a flash-card in NTFS ?


Jörg

[UtwigMU]

I have formatted a ZIP drive in NTFS.

[TnT]

I don't think there is anything preventing formats, it's just you lose a lot of the portability of the device.

I'd like to see that file recovery program too. At work we have EZ Recovery Pro, but I think it has about a 25% or less success rate. There's a lot of students that keep their essays on floppy and everyday there is always someone who has it go corrupt.