What you don’t know may destroy your entire operating system! What can be so destructive…Directory Junctions, that’s what! What? You don’t know what a directory junction is? That’s not uncommon. Many people don’t know what a directory junction is. A directory junction is a fancy, geeky name for a link that redirects a reference from one directory to another directory on the same machine. In the Unix world you would know it as a symbolic link. In the Windows world it’s called a directory junction, or junction point. They were introduced with Windows 2000 and NTFS 3.0.

How can a directory junction be so dangerous? Directory junctions can be most destructive when an application (or you yourself) performs a destructive recursive traversal of a directory (or folder). What is a destructive recursive traversal? That’s when you or an application performs a destructive action on the entire contents of a folder or directory, such as deleting, cleaning, or wiping that folder.

For example, an administrator wanting to clean out the contents of his c:\temp folder would issue this (destructive) recursive command: rd /s c:\temp. This would clean out the entire c:\temp folder, including anything in any other folder within c:\temp. But, if an attacker has set a trap by making c:\temp\mytrap point to c:\windows\system32 by using a directory junction, that administrator would unknowingly wipe out his entire system folder!

Likewise, if a destructive application, such as a File Shredder, Web History Cleaner, or the like, fails to detect directory junctions, the results could be catastrophic! If you use a File Shredding program or Internet History Cleaner, or similar program, you should make sure that that program follows secure coding methods and that it can detect and avoid directory junctions.

AceErase File Shredder and History Eraser automatically detects and recognizes directory junctions, warns you when one is found, and avoids traversing through them. Shred safely with AceErase!