Protecting your Flash and Removable Disks

The StopSign Support team is constantly gleaning information on how to fully protect you and your computer from virus threats. When our team identifies viable protection measures, we like to share that information with our users.

More and more people are using removable "flash" type drives. As more people use them, they become a greater target for viruses and other malicious threats.
TREND MIRCOhas developed steps to help protect your removable drive.

These steps will have you create non-writable folders with names that are commonly used to transport viruses onto your drive.

STEP 1 - Ensure the Removable Drive is Formatted with NTFS.

1. Open
MY COMPTER - Click START > MY COMPUTER.

2. Locate the removable or "flash" drive from the list of devices and removable storage.

3.
RIGHT CLICK the icon for the removable drive, CHOOSE PROPERTIES.

4. In the Properties Dialog box, on the General Tab, you should see File system. If the drive is formatted using anything but NTFS, such as FAT or FAT32, please
CLICK HERE. If the drive is already formatted as an NTFS Drive, continue to the steps listed below for your operating system.

5. Click
OK.

NOTE: If your removable drive is not formatted with NTFS and you do not have access to a Vista or Windows 7 computer that will allow you to format your removable drive with NTFS, it is still possible to provide some minimal protection to your computer by simply creating the folders listed in this article. If a virus is attempting to re-write those folders, you will generally be prompted if you wish to save the changes. Using the attrib function outlined HERE.  


Step 2 - Setting up the "dummy folders"

1. Create 5 new folders in the root directory (not inside a folder) of the removable disk.

a. Double Click the removable drive icon in My Computer.

b. Right Click a blank area (the area where you see file names.)

c. From the pop up list CHOOSE NEW > FOLDER

d. Right click the New Folder icon that appears and choose RENAME.

The five folder names should be: autorun.inf recycle recycler recycled setup

2. Resetting the Permissions on each folder

a. Right Click the autorun.inf folder. Choose PROPERTIES.

b. In the Properties Dialog box, choose the SECURITY tab.

c. In the Permissions area for each user listed, DENY the following options:

MODIFY, READ, & EXECUTE (Checking these options will auto-check other options).

d. Click OK.

e. REPEAT Steps a - d for each of the other four folders.

 

If you are unable to access the Security Dialog box listed above,CLICK HEREfor alternate instructions.

 


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