Securely deleting files from the vault

Knowledge Base Security
1

Greetings,

I noticed that in my Windows Cryptomator installation, I could not delete files from within the unlocked vault (WebDrive) using a file shredding utility. Using the Windows delete function does work and the files don’t appear in the Trash Bin, as expected (from what I’ve read on other posts).

Question:

  1. Is it secure to delete the files using the Windows delete function? I just want to make sure the cleartext version of the deleted files cannot be accessed at a later time. My guess is that the actual deleted files are the encrypted version so it would be meaningless even if they were recovered from the hard drive.

  2. I also tried to move a file from an unlocked vault to an unencrypted local drive location and then use a file shredding utility to delete it securely. That does work, but I’m guessing that this is unnecessary assuming the answer to question 1 is “yes”.

Thanks in advance!

2

Hi,

Anyone know the answer to the question?

“Is it secure to delete the files using the Windows delete function?”

Thanks!

3

There are shredding tools that support network drives.
These tools just overwrite the files with zeroes.

Please keep in mind that Cryptomators purpose is to encrypt data you want to store online.
If you want to encrypt local data stored on your local machine, you should give veracrypt a try.

4

Cryptomator encrypts files on-the-fly, so your unencrypted data should never be written to the disk. Deleted files will not be recoverable without the encryption key.

Moving the files to an unencrypted volume first before using a file shredding utility could make them more vulnerable to unauthorized access, since this unencrypted copy may still leave traces behind after the file shredding process.