Monday, May 2, 2011

How To Protect Your Computer From USB Viruses


Here are few useful tips that can help you to protect your computer from USB Viruses.

1) FreeCommander

When user double clicks on theUSB drive files pointed by the autorun.inf got executed which copies the virus files on your system.So , you should open your USB drive through FreeCommander , it’s file explorer like windows explorer.

Download FreeCommander

2) Windows Feature Autorun

Mostly USB viruses contains autorun.inf and .bat file or similar . Autorun is windows feature which automatically initiates inserted usb or cd/dvd . For example , below is simple autorun.inf file that will launch program called launch.bat , launch.bat can be virus
[autorun]
open=launch.bat
ACTION= Perform a Virus Scan
So, to protect your computer from usb threats I suggest you to disable autorun feature.

How To Disable Autorun Feature Manually

1) Go to Run > type gpedit.msc

2) Under User configuration expand Administrative templates and select Windows Components..

3) Go to Autoplay Polices

4) Double click on Turn off autoplay

5) Select the radio button Enable- > Click ok

3)Protect Your USB Drive From Virus With Dummy Files

To prevent virus attacks to your PC, you must make your USB storage device free from virus as well which are most of the time plug and played to your PC. Usually, most of the virus and worms copies to your USB drive easily. No matter what you do, you cannot stop this action form virus when you insert your USB drive to infected computer. But to prevent from un-authorized copying of viruses you can make your USB storage device completely full so that no more files can be added to it. But filling up the storage device will not be practical as you have to add some heavy contents there and you won’t like to put large contents which will often hectic job. But after following this tutorial you’ll feel easier to do that.

4) Scan USB devices with antivirus

It’s a good idea to scan usb devices with updated antivirus software’s . Check my previous article Best Free Antivirus Software . there you’ll find some good free antivirus.

5)USB Write Protector

These viruses tend to copy themselves to the flash drive whenever system detected new device plug in. I still remember there are some old USB drives that come with write protect feature. But unfortunately most of the new flash drive don’t come with such feature, maybe the manufacturers want to cut down the cost?
So, the only way to protect our USB flash drive is enable the write protect through our own PC. With USB Write Protector, you can turn on/off the write protect to a USB flash drive.

Download USB Write Protector

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