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Secure your USB Flash Drive


USB flash drive (UFD) is the favorite nest for virus, here I'll explain some ways to secure your UFD:

1. Prevent the virus from entering your USB flash drive
Turn off plug and play, that's the gate for virus to infect your USB flash drive. Believe me, you don't really need the plug and play, and whenever you open a UFD don't doubleclick it, use right click and then choose open (not autoplay/autorun),this prevents you from accidentally activate the virus autorun. You can turn it off using some softwares like TuneUp, WinXp manager, or Tweak UI (Windows Powertoy), but if you don't have any then we'll manually turn it off. Open 'Services' on Control Panel (it's in Administrative Tools), doubleclick 'Plug and Play' and stop the service. Don't forget to select 'Disabled' on startup type dropdown menu.

2. Remove virus files
If you find strange files in your UFD that always reappear whenever you deleted them, it's possible that they are active virus files. To remove them completely, either use antivirus (make sure it's up to date) or enter safe mode and delete it (but new computer virus usually active on safe mode as well). The best way is by using new folders to block their ability to 'write' on your UFD. First, delete the virus file(s) and quickly make a folder with exactly the same name as the virus file (including the file extension), using this way the active virus on the memory won't be able to rewrite the virus file.

3. Last step (and other people will appreciate this)
Don't let virus change your UFD into a virus factory! Virus will always create autorun.inf file on your UFD to autorun itself whenever you plug in your UFD to a device that has its 'Plug and Play' activated (that's why I told you to disable it). We'll use the same method as our second step, delete the autorun.inf and quickly make a new folder and name it autorun.inf, this way the virus can enter your UFD but it won't be able to infect anyone (as long as you don't accidentally run the virus file).

With those steps combined (close the front door, clean the house, close the back door) then your UFD will be safe from the annoying autorunning virus. Note that some viruses are fast enough to rewrite the file after you deleted it, in this case you have to make the folder(s) on another place (for example on your desktop), rename it (must be exactly the same with the virus file), then copy/cut it, open your UFD, delete the virus file(s), and quickly paste the folder(s) you made before.

4 comments:

Chandra said...

yeah, it's sound great,
little bit tricky,
and I hope it will be effective to prevent viruses.

actually, what's the original function of plug and play that you suggest to disable?

Todd said...

Yohan,
Good info. Maybe you can give a demonstration in class sometime. Nice post.

One thing you might want to change is the bright blue link color. It is hard on the eyes:-)

Todd said...

Oh, and where did you get this info? Sources?

Yohan said...

original function: plug and play allows user to automatically run program(s) on the UFD, for example if you plugged in a UFD with music files, your OS (in this case Windows) will automatically call media player to play the files

yup I'll try to change the link color

I got this info from my friend on senior high school