Use the "wipe" feature in WinZip

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A key reason why many users to purchase WinZip is its powerful, easy-to-use AES encryption. One of them is automatic wiping, which helps you to keep your confidential information confidential.

When you open a Zip file and double-click an encrypted file in the WinZip window, WinZip must create a temporary copy of the file on your hard drive. This temporary copy is deleted when you close the file but, before doing so, WinZip wipes (or shreds) it using the U.S. Department of Defense standard (DoD 5220.22-M). This prevents temporarily extracted copies of encrypted files from being recovered. It is safe and simple and secure.

Starting with WinZip 20.0, you are not restricted only to wiping files that were temporarily extracted from an encrypted Zip file. By entering WinZip's file management mode, you can browse to and manually select files and/or folders and then click the Wipe button on the Manage tab. After responding to a caution message, WinZip will delete the selection(s) and securely wipe it (them).

If you are concerned about how many write cycles WinZip will be doing, due to this new feature, keep in mind that the wipes are done only on extracted files that were encrypted in the Zip file and only if the extraction was for temporary use by WinZip such as doing an open or view from inside WinZip. Extra write cycles are not done for Zip files that do not contain encrypted files. Also, the wipe is done in a separate thread to reduce or eliminate the impact to WinZip’s performance.

 

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