Wiper: Secure Destruction of Sensitive Virtual Data

Toolkit to perform secure destruction of sensitive virtual data, temporary files and swap memories.

It has been designed to make tasks about personal data destruction easier, for example those which remain on work computers when employees leave the company. Making the entire process easier through the interactive mode and allowing it to be automated through the CLI mode, it can be useful for both the employee and the companies when cleaning personal data on PCs that is going to be reused.

You can configure your own overwrite method, choosing and combining between ones, zeros and/or random data methods as many times as you want (e.g.: or, rzzrozr, roozr…). By default, it performs a single one-pass with random data.

Usage

usage: wiper.py [-h] [-i] [-f path] [-p path] [-r path] [-t] [-u] [-T] [-U] [-s]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -i, --interactive     interactive mode, the script will guide you
  -f path, --free path  wipe all free space on given path
  -p path, --path path  path to dir/file you want to wipe
  -m ozr, --method ozr  overwrite methods to apply (o: ones, z: zeros, r: random),
                        you can combine it and choose the order
  -r path, --root path  set a custom root path if you want to wipe with auto-search modes
                        an unbooted system (e.g. /media/drive)
  -u, --home            auto-search mode: locate actual user home directory and wipes it
  -U, --home-all        auto-search mode: locate all users home directory and wipes it
  -s, --swaps           auto-search mode: locate swap partitions/pagefiles and wipes it
                        (be careful: UUID swap partitions also will be wiped)

Interactive example

CLI example

Advanced examples

• Wipes all free space in a given partition:

wiper.py -f /home

• Wipes all files inside a given path using zeros, ones, zeros, zeros and random methods:

wiper.py -p /home/user/Documents -m zozzr

• Locate and wipe pagination files inside an unbooted OS (mounted on /home/media/) using only zeros method:

wiper.py -r /home/media -s -m z

Features

• You can configure your own overwrite method, choosing and combining between ones, zeros and/or random data methods as many times as you want (e.g.: or, rzzrozr, roozr…). By default, it performs a single one-pass with random data.
• MANUAL wipe selection. You can wipe single files, whole directories and free space in partitions.
• AUTO wipe selection. Suggests an automatic selection of paths to wipe, relatives to personal/temporary data and swap memories.
  If you run it with the OS target unmounted, e.g. from a live OS trying to wipe an unmounted hard drive containing another OS, you should provide the root path/mount point to that system in order to use auto-search mode.

How it works

• This is not a backup tool: the data will be unrecoverable, so be sure to backup all the files you want to keep before wipe it.
• You can wipe single/multiple files and wipe free space by manual selection.
• Auto-search mode is able to scan and suggest sensitive paths that are tipically candidates to wipe.
• It overwrites existing data or free space with one-pass pseudo-random/ones/zeros bytes and also combine them.
• Paths provided can be absolute or relative, but don’t allow wildcards.
• Be careful when you overwrite whole partitions (like wipe swaps feature), the device block (info like partitions UUID) will be destroyed.

Requirements

• Python 3
• wmi (if you want to use auto-search mode booted on a Windows OS)

This tool is created for the sole purpose of security awareness and education, it should not be used against systems that you do not have permission to test/attack. The author is not responsible for misuse or for any damage that you may cause. You agree that you use this software at your own risk.