how to protect removable drives

[junjun]

How to prevent removable drive from being a carrier of viruses and malware?

1)Sometime you have to transfer data from removable drive to your PC for work and projects. If the PC is infected how do you prevent it from infecting your removable drive?

2)how do you prevent infected removable drive from infecting your PC?

Is there any way to spot it?

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I would say scanning them would be a good practice,
As well as scanning the computers with he same utilities before inserting the removable hdd...
Cheers.

 

[Golden]

How to prevent removable drive from being a carrier of viruses and malware?

1)Sometime you have to transfer data from removable drive to your PC for work and projects. If the PC is infected how do you prevent it from infecting your removable drive?

2)how do you prevent infected removable drive from infecting your PC?

Is there any way to spot it?

Panda has a very good tool for this sort of thing:
ANTIMALWARE: Panda USB Vaccine - Download FREE - PANDA SECURITY

 

[cottonball]

Along with Panda USB Vaccine (disables a pen drive's Autorun.inf file), consider using SUPERAntiSpyware Portable Scanner:

Download > SUPERAntiSpyware - SUPERAntiSpyware Portable Scanner

It requires no installation. Just copy it to your pen drive and run it whenever you want to check for and remove infections.

The Panda USB Vaccine, to my understanding, will not protect you from any further infections such as worms or trojans that infect pen drives.

 

[junjun]

What about when plugging other people's removable drive how to protect from other people?

When you have to plug in other people removable drives what precaution should you take?

 

[Golden]

Scan with your AV product

 

[junjun]

You mean scan the files you copied over or the whole removable drive?

If you constantly scan the removable drive would it reduce its live span?

 

[Golden]

You mean scan the files you copied over or the whole removable drive?

Whole drive

If you constantly scan the removable drive would it reduce its live span?

No

 

[ThrashZone]

If you constantly scan the removable drive would it reduce its live span?

I doubt it,
Your also assuming the portable has ever been scanned in the first place
Just say My Computer = My Rules

 

[junjun]

Just wondering, is having an anti virus software sufficient to protect your PC from removable drive threat

As in when the user is a computer newbie (eg.granparents) he/she did not scan the whole drive before using a plug in removable drive to copy or view a file will an AV be sufficient in protecting them from most threat?

 

[Alejandro85]

The fundamental Windows flaw that enables USB drives to propagate viruses is the autorun feature, that is the thing that this kind of virus exploit as it runs a program automatically without user permission. The very first measure you should always do it to completely disable it. This would at least prevent viruses to run so they remain harmless on the drive, when you have a chance to spot them or at least run an AV for detection.

Viruses might sneak in pendrives for other than autorun viruses, of course, but those are much less of a menace if you scan prior, as they don't get run only by plugin the drive.

Just wondering, is having an anti virus software sufficient to protect your PC from removable drive threat

The very first protection any computer has is the user. Common sense is the first line of defense against any threats you might face, but if user is not knowledgeable about them there is little you can do. Basically, if the user clicks "yes to all" without thinking, problems WILL appear sooner or latter, as many nasties rely on the user to voluntary run them. Antiviruses are inherently not reliable to stop or even detect everything, they serve as a good safety net, but should not be the only protection.