In an incident that highlights the growing security challenges around wireless apps, Citi said its iPhone app accidentally saved information including account numbers, bill payments and security access codes in a hiddenfile on users' iPhones.
But scaling of compute resources is linear with the number of endpoints, since in the case of the hidden location file, each one brings its own resources to the party.
It also makes it easier to find the files that have been created, accessed and modified during an attack, and it is able to reconstruct deleted files from raw data found in various hidden parts of a computer's hard disk, such as unallocated space and file slack.
Many observers have suggested defensive techniques that deploy TrueCrypt disk encryption with hidden volume partitions or PGP Whole Disk Encryption rendering the entire computer unbootable thereby making even file time and date stamps unavailable.