Security

What are the security implications of Volume Shadow Copy? Suppose you decide to protect one of your documents from prying eyes. First, you create an encrypted copy using an encryption application. Then, you "wipe" (or "secure-delete") the original document, which consists of overwriting it several times and deleting it. (This is necessary, because if you just deleted the document without overwriting it, all the data that was in the file would physically remain on the disk until it got overwritten by other data. See question above for an explanation of how file deletion works.) Ordinarily, this would render the original, unencrypted document irretrievable. However, if the original file was stored on a volume protected by the Volume Shadow Copy service and it was there when a restore point was created, the original file will be retrievable using Previous versions. All you need to do is right-click the containing folder, click Restore previous versions, open a snapshot, and, lo and behold, you'll see the original file that you tried so hard to delete!

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