Protecting my usb

Layback Bear · 22 Mar 2014

As far as I know when something is write protected on computer (A) it is coded.
If you want to open the wright protected information on computer (B) your will have to use the code installed by computer (A). If you don't know that code (password) it is not going to open on computer (B).

You could go back to computer (A) open the information and copy it to your hard drive then install it on a non protected media. At that time you should be able to transfer the information where you want it.

If you don't have the code (password) to access the wright protected drive you are plum out of luck. The information is locked by somebody using a password.
Do you know who password protected the usb device?
Do you know the password, key or code used?

Alejandro85 · 22 Mar 2014

Problem with infected USBs are that they get autorun on Windows even before you have a chance to analyze them. This is a known, long term security flaw of Windows since Win95.

The very first measure would be, on your PC, to disable autorun. This does not prevent a drive to get infected, but will prevent your computer to run the virus on its own so it won't become infected. You can safely clean the USB thing before it does any harm.

Another precaution, a bit home-made but quite effective, is to prevent a possible virus to use the autorun flaw. For this, on the USB drive, create a folder named exactly autorun.inf. This prevents a virus to create the dreaded autorun.inf file (since something else with the same name exists), and it must delete it before infecting, which gives a clear indication that something went wrong. If the drive is NTFS, you can reinforce it by denying full control permission to everyone. Not a 100% effective method, but for many nasties it works.

Of course, after returning from a user's system to yours, do a full scan with an antivirus to the drive, just to be sure.

Layback Bear · 22 Mar 2014

Thank you Alejandro85. In my post I used the term Auto Play when it should of been Auto Run.
Disabling Auto Run will be necessary in my opinion or the bad things exe. will just jump in your computer before you can scan.