Any flash drive can auto-load a virus onto your system if you have not taken precautions
Last week, IBM became the latest large corporation to receive major press over unknowingly distributing malware on USB drives. Unfortunately for them, they passed out these infected thumb drives at a security conference in Australia! A full link to one of the stories is HERE.
As the story states, it is best to disable AutoRun in Windows, or if you are using Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Standard or Advanced you can enable that anti-virus package to disable auto-run across your organization. In environments where a Microsoft Windows Server controls access on your domain, a security policy may be set that will disable AutoRun on all computers.
How to disable AutoRun:
For those using Microsoft Windows XP w/SP2 or SP3, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 w/SP1 or SP2, Microsoft provides the following information for insuring AutoRun can be disabled: Link to HOW TO DISABLE AUTORUN
Running Windows 7? (Good for you!) – By default, AutoRun is disabled for USB drives.
Save yourself and your company the horror of getting infected with viruses, worms, trojans and other malware via the USB flash drive by disabling the AutoRun. We remove viruses and fix computers all the time because of this type of situation here in Greenville / Upstate, SC…
If you get lost and need help for disabling AutoRun on your system, please shoot me an email and I will give you some pointers. Should you not feel secure in making changes, we can assist with that as well.