Cybersecurity-Projects/PROJECTS/beginner/metadata-scrubber-tool/docs/best-practices.md

Best Practices for Secure File Sharing

Guidelines for protecting your privacy when sharing files.

Before Sharing Files

1. Always Check Metadata First

mst read yourfile.pdf

Review the output for any sensitive information.

2. Scrub Before Sharing

mst scrub yourfile.pdf --output ./clean

Always use the cleaned version for sharing.

3. Verify Removal

mst verify yourfile.pdf ./clean/processed_yourfile.pdf

Confirm sensitive data was actually removed.

---

File Type Specific Guidance

📸 Images

High Risk: Photos from smartphones contain GPS coordinates by default.

# Batch process all photos before uploading
mst scrub ./photos -r -ext jpg --output ./clean

Tip: Disable location services for your camera app to prevent GPS embedding.

📄 PDF Documents

High Risk: PDFs often contain author name, creator software, and sometimes revision history.

mst scrub report.pdf --output ./clean

Note: This tool removes document properties. For redacting visible content, use a dedicated PDF editor.

📊 Office Documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

High Risk: Office files store author, company, and modification history.

# Process all Word documents
mst scrub ./documents -r -ext docx --output ./clean

---

Workflow Integration

For Regular File Sharing

1. Create a "clean" folder for processed files
2. Before sharing, always scrub to that folder
3. Share only from the clean folder

For Automated Pipelines

# In CI/CD or scripts
mst scrub ./output -r -ext pdf --output ./publish

For Verification

# Verify before publishing
mst verify original.pdf ./publish/processed_original.pdf

---

What's Preserved (And Why)

Property	Reason
Created Date	File organization, audit trails
Modified Date	Version tracking
Language	Accessibility, screen readers

These properties are generally not privacy-sensitive and are often needed for file management.

---

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Sharing the original instead of the processed file

   • Always verify you're sharing from the output folder

2. Not checking the output

   • Use mst verify to confirm removal

3. Forgetting about PDFs

   • PDF author metadata is often overlooked

4. Batch processing without verification

   • Spot-check a few files after batch processing

5. Assuming social media strips metadata

   • Many platforms compress but don't fully remove metadata

---

Quick Reference

# Read metadata
mst read file.jpg

# Scrub single file
mst scrub file.jpg --output ./clean

# Scrub directory
mst scrub ./folder -r -ext jpg --output ./clean

# Preview without changes
mst scrub ./folder -r -ext jpg --dry-run

# Verify removal
mst verify original.jpg ./clean/processed_original.jpg