Securing Your Removable Disk

[hfbvm 0]

Removable storage devices such as USB flash memory has simple plug-and-play design that allows you to easily and quickly transfer and store data. However it also makes virus and spyware spread easily. Many viruses transmit via USB drives by utilizing system Autorun features. To do this a virus first copies itself and the "autorun.ini" file into removable disk. When you plug your removable disk into your PC, the system reads the autorun.ini first, then it runs the virus executable file specified in autorun.ini. The virus executable is then launched and copied to your system. To protect your system against this kind of virus/spyware, you need to disable the Autorun features on your system. To disable the autorun feature, please do as follow:

1/ Click Start, then click Run, type "gpedit.msc" to open the Group Policy dialog.
2/ In the left pane, expand the Computer Configuration in Local Computer Policy.
3/ Then locate and expand Administrative Templates.
4/ Select System.
5/ In the right pane, double click Turn off Autoplay to open the properties dialog.
6/ Select the Enabled radio box. In the Turn off Autoplay on: select list, select
All drives to disable autoplay on all drives.
7/ Click OK to save the change.
8/ Done.

This could prevent some worries....
Edited April 30, 2009 by yordan
Quoted the text copied from http://www.spyany.com/program/article_tut-disable-auto-play.html (see edit history)

[tansqrx 0]

Copied from http://www.spyany.com/

[surfermac 0]

This could prevent some worries....

next time dont copy

[tansqrx 0]

Let me make a different suggestion for actually securing your flash drive. Download Truecrypt (http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/) and then turn the entire drive into an encrypted file system.Flash drives are the one piece of technology that you take everywhere and is most likely to be lost or stolen. Consider what might be on your portable flash drive and then consider what would happen if a random person saw that data. Worse yet, what if a technically savvy person stole it?

[surfermac 0]

Let me make a different suggestion for actually securing your flash drive. Download Truecrypt (http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/) and then turn the entire drive into an encrypted file system.

 

Flash drives are the one piece of technology that you take everywhere and is most likely to be lost or stolen. Consider what might be on your portable flash drive and then consider what would happen if a random person saw that data. Worse yet, what if a technically savvy person stole it?

but the deencryption software may not be present in every system we plug in the pendrive

[yordan 10]

but the deencryption software may not be present in every system we plug in the pendrive

that means that you must have two pendrives.One with your important data, the encrypted one.
And one with almost no important data, except some portable apps (like putty) and the portable version of TrueKrypt. You put that version on a temporary space, you fire it, and then you use it in order to open your encrypted pendrive. And you remove it from the temporary space when you definitively leave that system.

[tansqrx 0]

Truecrypt has a special feature called âtraveler modeâ that helps in the situation where the machine you are using doesnât already have Truecrypt installed. A portable version of Truecrypt is installed and run on the host machine and you will then have full access to your encrypted thumb drive. The one deal breaker is that you must have administrative privileges on the machine that you wish to use traveler mode on.

I personally just created a container on the thumb drive that was the size of the drive â 10Mb or so. I kept a copy of Truecrypt on the small unencrypted portion of the drive just in case I needed to install in on a different machine. Yes this is inconvenient but true security almost always is. If you donât have anything on your removable drive that you wouldnât mind every single person on the planet seeing, then donât encrypt and save yourself a lot of time and hassle. If on the other hand you donât want everyone seeing what you have then the extra trouble is worth it.

Edit: If forgot this link http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Edited August 24, 2009 by tansqrx (see edit history)

[skedad 0]

Truecrypt.... well now... I do use my flash (removable) drive to send over important files for customers at work... I do a lot of transferring important files to pharmacies... and it would be great for it to be encrypted... I will just have to look into that, even the traveling version. Thanks for the really good posts here.... - skedad -

[tansqrx 0]

It sounds like you have a very legitimate reason to encrypt everything you own. I intended the original post for the average user who just wants to keep their private documents out of the hands of thieves. One example that I have heard numerous times is auto shops taking a look at what is on your flash drive or MP3 player while your car is getting fixed. A lot of people keep their flash drive on their key chain and guess what, when you hand the auto shop your keys, they also get the flash drive. While they are “working” on your car (sorry no offense to any service mechanic out there), they pop the flash drive into the laptop running the diagnostic equipment and copy everything off the drive. The usual things that get copied are music and p0rn but they may also take a look at your last year’s tax return if they feel like it. This usually doesn’t cause any real problem and you would never know it happened. The fact is that your flash drive may be out of your control more than you realize.I do hope you get your drive secured, skedad. I have the feeling that the hardest part will be getting your customer to use the encryption also. If they don’t understand the value of the data then you may have a long road ahead. Also consider using Truecrypt to encrypt your work computer. It has a whole disk encryption option that encrypts the entire operating system so even if you remove the hard drive and put it into another machine, your data is still safe. You are asked for a password on startup (between the BIOS and OS load). Considering you have data of value I would highly recommend considering it.

[yordan 10]

I do use my flash (removable) drive to send over important files for customers at work... I do a lot of transferring important files to pharmacies... and it would be great for it to be encrypted...

You need the data on your flash drive to be encrypted, I agree. You need the data transfer to be encrypted. OK.But you don't need to keep them encrypted in the final computer, in the remote pharmacy.
You only need the transfer to be protected. Once the files are arrived, they can remain not-crypted because the pharmacy is a safe place.
So, you can use scp to perform the transfer.
you need a scp server on the remote computer, and scp client on your pc. You can use portable FileZilla on your USB flash drive, so nothing to be installed on the pc you use. scp will perform the crypting job during the transfer, and the data will be standard data once uploaded on the remote system. You will have no long way to walk with your customers, only explain them that you need to install the scp file transfer protocol because this is the way you work, they can understand that.