|  |  |  |  |  | Introduction |

When you delete sensitive files from a disk on your computer, the operating system usually does not erase contents of these files from the disk - it only deletes 'references' to these files from filesystem data. Contents of the deleted file (or file's body) remains to be stored on the disk and can be easily recovered using any disk utilities.

Wiping is a term used to describe a process of shredding contents of a file or disk space. It is impossible to restore any data that has been properly wiped.

The BCWipe software is intended to give you a confidence that your deleted files cannot be recovered by an intruder. BCWipe repeatedly overwrites special patterns to the files to be destroyed. BCWipe for UNIX offers two wiping schemas:

- US DoD 5200.28-STD standard
  - default is 7 passes defined by standard
  - user-defined number of passes
- Peter Gutmann's 35 pass scheme. Please refer to article "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" by Peter Gutmann.

Starting with v1.4 BCWipe for UNIX supports NAS and other enterprise-level storage wiping.