Footnotes
- ↑ "What is overwrite?". Computer Hope. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
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In computer data storage, overwriting is the process of replacing old information with new information. [1] Overwriting generally occurs when unused file system clusters are written upon with new data, though overwriting is also used in security algorithms. These algorithms use a precise set of rules to remove any part of original data from the memory by writing new raw data on the memory. Data that has been overwritten, even just once, is generally considered to be unrecoverable.[ citation needed ]
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In information security and programming, a buffer overflow, or buffer overrun, is an anomaly where a program, while writing data to a buffer, overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory locations.
Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers.
In computer science, the computational complexity or simply complexity of an algorithm is the amount of resources required to run it. Particular focus is given to time and memory requirements. The complexity of a problem is the complexity of the best algorithms that allow solving the problem.
In computer science, a data structure is a data organization, management, and storage format that enables efficient access and modification. More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the relationships among them, and the functions or operations that can be applied to the data, i.e., it is an algebraic structure about data.
In computer science, a sorting algorithm is an algorithm that puts elements of a list into an order. The most frequently used orders are numerical order and lexicographical order, and either ascending or descending. Efficient sorting is important for optimizing the efficiency of other algorithms that require input data to be in sorted lists. Sorting is also often useful for canonicalizing data and for producing human-readable output.
In computer science, algorithmic efficiency is a property of an algorithm which relates to the amount of computational resources used by the algorithm. An algorithm must be analyzed to determine its resource usage, and the efficiency of an algorithm can be measured based on the usage of different resources. Algorithmic efficiency can be thought of as analogous to engineering productivity for a repeating or continuous process.
In cryptography, plaintext usually means unencrypted information pending input into cryptographic algorithms, usually encryption algorithms. This usually refers to data that is transmitted or stored unencrypted.
In computer science, an in-place algorithm is an algorithm which transforms input using no auxiliary data structure. However, a small amount of extra storage space is allowed for auxiliary variables. The input is usually overwritten by the output as the algorithm executes. An in-place algorithm updates its input sequence only through replacement or swapping of elements. An algorithm which is not in-place is sometimes called not-in-place or out-of-place.
In computing, a crash, or system crash, occurs when a computer program such as a software application or an operating system stops functioning properly and exits. The program responsible may appear to hang until a crash reporting service reports the crash and any details relating to it. If the program is a critical part of the operating system, the entire system may crash or hang, often resulting in a kernel panic or fatal system error.
Theoretical computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, lambda calculus, and type theory.
Data remanence is the residual representation of digital data that remains even after attempts have been made to remove or erase the data. This residue may result from data being left intact by a nominal file deletion operation, by reformatting of storage media that does not remove data previously written to the media, or through physical properties of the storage media that allow previously written data to be recovered. Data remanence may make inadvertent disclosure of sensitive information possible should the storage media be released into an uncontrolled environment.
The Gutmann method is an algorithm for securely erasing the contents of computer hard disk drives, such as files. Devised by Peter Gutmann and Colin Plumb and presented in the paper Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory in July 1996, it involved writing a series of 35 patterns over the region to be erased.
Disk encryption software is computer security software that protects the confidentiality of data stored on computer media by using disk encryption.
In computer science, garbage includes data, objects, or other regions of the memory of a computer system, which will not be used in any future computation by the system, or by a program running on it. Because every computer system has a finite amount of memory, and most software produces garbage, it is frequently necessary to deallocate memory that is occupied by garbage and return it to the heap, or memory pool, for reuse.
A guard byte is a part of a computer program's memory that helps software developers find buffer overflows while developing the program.
In computer science, a circular buffer, circular queue, cyclic buffer or ring buffer is a data structure that uses a single, fixed-size buffer as if it were connected end-to-end. This structure lends itself easily to buffering data streams.
Data erasure is a software-based method of overwriting the data that aims to completely destroy all electronic data residing on a hard disk drive or other digital media by using zeros and ones to overwrite data onto all sectors of the device. By overwriting the data on the storage device, the data is rendered irrecoverable and achieves data sanitization.
Mobile device forensics is a branch of digital forensics relating to recovery of digital evidence or data from a mobile device under forensically sound conditions. The phrase mobile device usually refers to mobile phones; however, it can also relate to any digital device that has both internal memory and communication ability, including PDA devices, GPS devices and tablet computers.
Rombertik is spyware designed to steal confidential information from targets using Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome running on Windows computers. It was first publicized by researchers at Cisco Talos Security and Intelligence Group.
Crypto-shredding is the practice of 'deleting' data by deliberately deleting or overwriting the encryption keys. This requires that the data have been encrypted. Data comes in these three states: data at rest, data in transit and data in use. In the CIA triad of confidentiality, integrity, and availability all three states must be adequately protected.