What Is FlashPurge?
FlashPurge is a very small set of files (two) which will allow you to purge your data from a Flash Drive, Hard Drive, or other storage devices - though it is specifically designed for use on a Flash Drive. The purpose of FlashPurge is to provide a very quick way to purge all the data on your flash disk. Because data can rather easily be recovered from a Windows/PC based computer, or a Mac, and even some flavors of the Linux OS, there is always the quest to find a way to truly be able to purge data from your storage devices that are not going to be (easily) recoverable by software designed to restore deleted files.
One of the most popular methods of ensuring your information on your storage device is not recoverable is by using zero-fill and multi-write methods. There are already a large market for such products, but very few in the Flash Drive industry. That is where FlashPurge comes into place!
With a very small footprint, with a very simple interface, and with an advanced anti-recover process, FlashPurge is able to take the data on your Flash Disk and make sure it is not going to be recoverable. (Note: FlashPurge is distributed AS IS and DOES NOT guarantee that it will do what it claims to do. Nobody in the software world can truly promise you such a thing)
It's free and worth every penny!
How Does FlashPurge Perform A Purge?
When you start the batch file (FlashPurge.bat) Windows will automatically detect the Flash Drive Letter Assignment & folder/directory that FlashPurge is starting from and passes that information to the FlashPurge.exe file. The FlashPurge.exe systematically goes through every file & folder contained in the starting directory. (read below for more on this)
For each file that it finds, it overwrites the file with random characters, then renames the file with random characters of the same length as the original file name, then deletes the file.
For each directory it finds, it empties the directories below it, then renames the directory to a name of random characters of the same length, then deletes the directory.
When finished, the FlashPurge.exe terminates, and the batch file deletes the FlashPurge.exe and then itself (FlashPurge.bat).
That is what it does in a nutshell.
How Do You Use FlashPurge?
FlashPurge is very simple to use.
Place the two FlashPurge files in any directory/folder where you want to totally purge the content of the directory/folder and all sub-directories/folders.
Simply click on the "FlashPurge.bat" file and a simple confirmation message will appear. It will ask if you really want to purge the data and instruct you to type "yes" if you really want to.
Simply type "yes" and press the enter key and wait.
Once the program finishes performing the purge the window will either close or it will go to a dos-prompt, depending on your version of Windows. Most of the time it will simply close the window and you can be confident the data is gone! It is as simple as that.
How Fast Does The FlashPurge Perform?
Without a doubt one of the biggest necessities of a Purge system is speed. If you are about to walk into a room you probably wish you did not have to walk into, and talk to people you probably wish you did not have to talk to, and explain what all is stored on your storage device, being able to purge the data as-fast-as-freaking-possible (if they are stupid enough to give you access to a computer with your storage device plugged in) is going to be vital to you protecting your data, the data of your company, or whatever the situation might be!
We have ran tests on some very cheap flash drives (by cheap we mean the stuff you get handed for free at conventions and such) and we have ran tests on the ultra-secure "IronKey" which uses some of the fastest NAND Flash available in the world today, but also has an on-device crypto-chip which one has to factor into the overall speed (or lack thereof). We have also tested it on a SanDisk 2-gig MiniSD and a Kingston SDHC 4-gig.
Both of our tests involved 120-megs of data, made up of two fifty-meg .exe files, plus the two FlashPurge files, plus a sub-directory with a some photographs.
On our cheapo flash and it took about 50-seconds to delete the data. That is less than 8 minutes for one-gig of data, which means about 8-gigs of data would take about an hour to purge. As most people these days have a 1, 2, or 4 gig flash stick, simply do the math.
On the SanDisk and Kingston it took a tad over 30-seconds to delete the data.
On the ultra-secure IronKey (4-gig model) it took 70-seconds to delete the data. (note: IronKey has stated they are working on an 8-gig model that will "use SLC flash that is at the leading edge of the development curve in NAND flash memory." They also stated that they are working on "hardware and firmware modifications in the future to crank up the speed of next-generation IronKeys for small file writes" and that the "crypto engine is not the blocker for the speed. It's mostly blocked by the speed of USB 2.0 and also the speed of writing to NAND flash") We are sure that somewhere in there is a reason why it performs 2x slower then everything else. Regardless of such, we still believe that if you are going to be using a flash drive to store sensitive material, IronKey is the best option available to you these days!
Things To Know And Remember:
You should only use FlashPurge if you have downloaded it from: http://www.CuddlyCactus.com/ -- use of a version of FlashPurge you might download from another website is well... unadvisable.
FlashPurge will only purge data from the starting directory and anything below it. As such, if you want to purge your entire storage device you will want to place it in the root directory. If you store all of your sensitive data in a folder/directory on the storage device, place the FlashPurge files within this directory/folder you desire to purge. (for IronKey users this is important... you should store your data in a directory/folder not the root folder, as IronKey places required operational files in its own root directory that you will not want to purge.)
Do not rename the files. FlashPurge has built-in secure-checks to make sure that it cannot be ran from files other then the default FlashPurge files. Renaming the files will either cause nothing at all to happen, or to cause an error to display, depending on your Operating System.
Do not be lured into thinking a "disk reformat" will keep your data from not be recovered - that is simply not true. You must use a system like FlashPurge or other multi-pass software to truly make your software non-recoverable.
Because FlashPurge.bat handles the process of deleting itself and the FlashPurge executable, these two files can be recovered. There is very little (if nothing at all) to prevent this. If somebody knows what they are doing they will figure out (eventually) that you used FlashPurge to purge the information. What happens after that is up to you... or, maybe somebody else ;)
FlashPurge, while not the fastest tool in the world, is a very secure tool - especially when it comes to flash memory. One has to remember that all flash memory has a cycle-life. What FlashPurge does is not exactly the friendliest bit of processing when it comes to the life-cycle of flash memory. One has to weigh the security provided by FlashPurge with the need to purge your data in a manner that is very likely for the foreseeable future, totally unrecoverable. FlashPurge is not meant to be used as a "daily cleaner", instead FlashPurge is meant to be used as a way to securely purge sensitive data from your storage device. Often times, one does not care about the long-term life-cycle of a flash drive when in a situation of needing to truly purge sensitive data, as such, FlashPurge is not concerned how much abuse it does to your flash drive - Security privacy is the focus, not another month or two of your flash drive live-cycle!
The FlashPurge.exe file is designed to not perform any purging operations unless it is passed specific commands. This is a great safety feature and helps to keep you from automatically (and accidentally) purging your data. In light of this one of the things we recommend is that you apply a "Hidden" attribute to the FlashPurge.exe file once you have copied it to your storage device.
How To Download:
To download FlashPurge point your browser download to http://www.cuddlycactus.com/flashpurge/flashpurge.zip