That USB drive will then be spreading the virus onto other computers if the operating system on those machines has an AutoRun-type feature enabled. There are a couple of ways USB thumb drives can be used to spread viruses and other malicious software.Īn infected computer can spread a virus to a clean USB thumb drive that is inserted. A common swag item in the tech industry, they also are mainstream consumer storage devices. Their small size makes them easy to slip into a pocket or carry on a lanyard around your neck. "They are today's floppy drives."īut USB drives are even handier. "The bad guys are intentionally developing new flavors of malware designed to propagate through USB devices," said Gunter Ollmann, chief security strategist for IBM's ISS security division. The fact that USB thumb drives are being used by so many people makes them an attractive target for virus writers. Floppy disks were the culprit in the early 1990s, followed by CDs. We've seen this before with portable external storage devices. Department of Defense has temporarily banned the use of thumb drives, CDs, and other removable storage devices because of the spread of the Agent.bzt virus, a variant of the SillyFDC worm, according to Wired. The US-CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) issued a warning on Thursday that malicious code is increasingly propagating via USB flash drive devices. USB thumb drives are convenient, popular and often free-and they're spreading viruses like sailors on shore leave.*
0 kommentar(er)
