24 replies to this topic

[tinoymalayil]

I found one of the simple way to open the USB Drive without affecting any viruses in our Computer.

At first you must Turn off Autoplay before inserting any removable devices.It is because most of the virus are affecting with this autoplay facility of Windows.

Use this method to turn off autoplay..
Enter gpedit.msc in the run or C prompt.then Select the Administration Templates ,then expand that and select System
You can see a Option Turn off AutoPlay..Select that and Select for All drives in the dialogue box to apply for all removable devices.
After inserting the USB Drive..Please donot doubleclick..Please use to Enter the drive name to the address bar(For Eg.If the drive of USB is K then type K:\ press enter)
If you have more ideas about this topic please reply..........

[Alex Cicala]

Normally for vista, the Admin Control "accept or deney" option will popup, surely if there is a virus on the usb this may popup. In this case click deney. But I have never seen a virus been activated by autoplay, autorun.

[rogerthecamel]

Yeah I've seen them before, they are a real pain to get rid of. And once I did manage to delete all trace of it it still opened the floodgates for many other viruses and spyware.

[freeflashclocks]

I never heard of those specific virus, and they must be quite lame to run when the usb runs only, in fact, it sounds just bad, virus have their own level of, lets say, quality, and even the most simple/lamest one, runs when you just plug your pen drive or any other removable media drives.

If you insert a usb drive, if it has a virus, you can forget about what you said here, it will execute itself on the spot, and those usb virus have all kinds of recplication and destruction methods, they do not need you to open or let the usb open itself to execute the rest of the virus code.

But then, i guess is possible to exist such a lame virus, i don't know for sure.

[miladinoski]

Also another way of removing every god-damn ridden virus that 'sits' on your USB thumb drive, is to simply get a live CD of some GNU/Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu), put it in, stick the USB thumb drive in the port and format it using the Partition Editor or gparted as it's called.

Worked for my friend!

[frozen.fish]

-Turning off auto run will not stop ALL virus but most.
-You can also right click on the drive and select explore and it will not auto-run anymore.
-You can also use POWERTOYS TWEAKUI to disable it.

-100% PROTECTION from USB virus is only satisfied with using third party USB blocking programs. or use a reliable antivirus instead.
-Also encrypting your USB works.

[k_nitin_r]

tinoymalayil, on Apr 21 2009, 06:12 AM, said:

I found one of the simple way to open the USB Drive without affecting any viruses in our Computer.

Use this method to turn off autoplay..
Enter gpedit.msc in the run or C prompt.then Select the Administration Templates ,then expand that and select System
You can see a Option Turn off AutoPlay..Select that and Select for All drives in the dialogue box to apply for all removable devices.

Does holding down the Shift key while inserting the USB drive stop the autorun? This works for CDROM drives.

BTW, another way you could do this is to use a Linux LiveCD if you want to read the contents of a USB drive - copy the files you need to your hard drive and remove the USB drive when you want to re-boot in Windows.

[The Simpleton]

I suggest that you use a USB drive that has a built-in antivirus program. I'm not sure that all companies have this, but some do, and using them would make sense. The USB 3.0 standard is almost here and that could mean a whole new army of viruses spreading at light-speed! So be warned....

[Sohakes]

This works! There isn't a virus that can execute itself.
What the virus do is that when you plug your usb on a infected computer, the virus copy itself on the usb drive, and makes a entry on autorun.inf!
If you just delete autorun.inf, but keep the virus on the pendrive there is no problem... the virus will not play alone...

I know this because my shcool computers are ALL infected, but here on my home computer there is no viruses! Because i disabled autorun ;D!

To delete the viruses just make the extension of the files appear and show hidden files. Then you delete the files that you dont put on your usb drive ^^!

[Unparallelogram]

There was an outbreak of such a virus at my school this past year. That particular variety would not spread itself if your device already had an autorun.inf file, assuming that it had already spread to the device, and so some clever kids just started carrying around a bogus autorun.inf file on their devices. This is of course no substitute for antivirus and occasional hand auditing, but it reduced a lot of spread between unprotected computers.

[The Simpleton]

That's indeed a clever idea but it's not gonna work with every kind, would it? There are other ones which spread with/without the autorun.inf file - maybe then those kids will run out of ideas!

Perhaps the best thing to do would be for everyone to just switch over to Linux - that would be the perfect solution! No more haggles about the viruses.

[Unparallelogram]

There are boot sector viruses too, but those went out of fashion a long time ago. Now, I suspect it's hypothetically possible for them to resurge with the new popularity of USB devices, but nobody's seen one in the wild that I know of.

But, the issue is rather that many autorun viruses will happily delete the existing file and write theirs over. They wouldn't care if they delete your legitimate autorun for whatever, nor if they rewrite their own over again.

Disabling autorun may well be the best idea, especially since you can right click a drive and specifically select to execute its autorun if you need.

[The Simpleton]

Disabling autorun is the most sensible thing to do, but most people don't bother to do that, since they're....well, too lazy! They prefer that everything be done automatically on their PC, even if they know that autorun will increase the risk of catching a virus.

Then there's the possibility of having a virus which doesn't depend on autorun...well the possibilities are numerous! That's why I suggested above that using Linux is the best option

[Saint_Michael]

The disabling of Auto-play on USB devices isn't really a new idea, when Conficker was let loose it was found out it would target USB drives and one of the first things that was recommended was the turning off of auto-replay. I know there are a lot of USB based programs that offer protection and besides it is a good chance that if your USB device is infected your computer is as well.

[Time Warner Cable SUCKS]

mount the USB drive in either a virtual PC on a linux flavor

problem solved



OBVIOUSLY always disable autoplay... it appeals to the cretinous and they're the ones most often damaged by it

Edited by Time Warner Cable SUCKS, 23 July 2009 - 07:40 PM.

[akira550]

this is great i am looking for this thanks author for this let me if my USB's wouldn't be broke again because i used to waste a USB with just 2 or 3 months because it has a Virus when it has one. i am throwing it away and never to use it again thanks i found this topic and i wish that it was effective

[fisiofelipe]

Hold SHIFT before put Usb drive dont have same effect ?

[iGuest]

Safely Open a pendriveHow To Safely Open Usb Drive Without Affecting Viruses

1. Connect your pendrive to your PC physically. 2. Open My Computer on your PC (Win XP,VISTA ETC).3. Look at your pendrive DRIVE LETTER (it may be d: or e: or f: etc). DO NOT DOUBLE CLICK ON IT)4. On the address bar (if you don't have. Click on View/Toolbar/Addressbar), Type the drive letter of your pendrive and then colon(:), example d:5. Press enter.

This is the safest way to open any pendrive. You could always use this only method for opening other pendrives which you suspect contain viruses.

-reply by Ryad

[iGuest]

One of the simplest way to do it is by opening the drive or removable media through the address bar but not through the command prompt as the virus can still infect the pc -reply by KUKU

[Dak1ng]

I've never seen any type of virus like that before. What i'd do is scan the whole flash drive with an antivirus program, remove the virus, or backup all the uninfected files, and format the drive. Then I'd clean the regular computer of the virus.

[templehost]

i dont think it can be done as its having many viruses which without telling you will affect the computer
the best way to keep out of it is to keep an antivirus which should be updated asap
and also i nice firewall

[iGuest]

@miladinoski: You could also use a live CD (I use Knoppix) to just erase the virus(s) and autorun.Inf from your flash drive. You could also do the same thing with FileASSASSIN.

-reply by Ed Boi

[armynavy123]

tinoymalayil, on Apr 20 2009, 09:12 PM, said:

I found one of the simple way to open the USB Drive without affecting any viruses in our Computer.

At first you must Turn off Autoplay before inserting any removable devices.It is because most of the virus are affecting with this autoplay facility of Windows.

Use this method to turn off autoplay..
Enter gpedit.msc in the run or C prompt.then Select the Administration Templates ,then expand that and select System
You can see a Option Turn off AutoPlay..Select that and Select for All drives in the dialogue box to apply for all removable devices.
After inserting the USB Drive..Please donot doubleclick..Please use to Enter the drive name to the address bar(For Eg.If the drive of USB is K then type K:\ press enter)
If you have more ideas about this topic please reply..........

or you can right click the driver device sign press scan with whatever virus protection you have and wait fo it to scan and Viola! You got a noninfected or infected usb! Also you can just fix it if it is infected so no big deal.

[iGuest]

bogus autorun.infHow To Safely Open Usb Drive Without Affecting Viruses

What I do now is that I create a folder named autorun.Inf at the root of my flash drive and then I put a text file in that folder. I also hide the folder so that when it reappears with hidden file viewing turned off, I know that a virus is on my flash drive.

I was skeptical of this method when I came across it at first, but now I use it for all of my flash drives. I also help all of my friends by putting the folder on their flash drives.

 

-reply by Ed Boi

[abazi16]

Thank you for the great tip, I personally use Flash Disinfector you jsut open this program it asks you to insert the Flash Disk and it cleans it from all Autorun viruses it's really good and fast. The best is that it has only 129 Kb.
Flash Disinfector Instructions and Download