And I mean your USB drive, because you can catch a bad bug. lately are very fashionable viruses spread through removable drives, one of which could be your pendrive , your external hard drive, your digital camera ... The
propagation mechanism is very simple to understand. You go with your USB and plug it into an infected computer. It infects your USB. You then you go with your USB to a computer sound and connect to it. From this point the computer that was healthy and not, and begin to infect all the USBs to be connected. Simple, right? In fact, all difficult to understand in this process is the joy and insouciance with which the owners of the USBs connect them to computers.
- Yes but I have antivirus, and I have updated, and the same happens at work, y. .. I'm safe, right?
- No, you're not.
Every day, hundreds of new viruses or variants of existing ones. In the more or less brief period of time until the antivirus maker is cosca turn, the virus grows and multiplies at home. This is the reason why that should antivirus update, this is the reason why some viral infections become epidemics, and this is the reason why most new viruses of this type will scoring a goal to your antivirus and meanders through your USB as soon as you connect to a computer infected.
- So, is there nothing I can do?
- Yes, but everything happens to know a little with how these things work.
The playback mechanism of these bugs is easy to understand. Everything is based on a file called 'autorun.inf ' you'll find in the root directory of your USB drive, if you are infected with one of these. Ojo! You see it does not mean you have a virus or not you see it means you do not have it. You'll have to make sure. Read on ... :-)
The autorun.inf is the file that controls the holy Autoplaying , the mechanism by Windows provides its (apparently, stupid) so that users can enjoy the contents of a CD, DVD or USB without having to do "nothing."
(I'm afraid that anyone who has seen enough users in the wild know why I'm quoting the "nothing".)
To see if your autorun is from friends or enemies, will have to open and watch your content. This can be done with Notepad or your favorite text editor: a text file. This would be a good time for you take a look at the Wikipedia article I linked earlier, so that you become familiar with the syntax that you'll encounter and you can understand. In short, what it contains one of these malicious files is a line that says to run another program (can be more than one), which is the virus. In typical Trojans that are transmitted in this way, this program will (usually) a hidden file in a hidden folder called RECYCLER (trash), but need not be. If you doubt whether this program is or is not a virus, it is best that you check with VirusTotal , this fantastic utility already told you about in the last article on the virus .
If on the other hand, do not see the autorun on your drive, you have to do is make sure you do not really have: may not be there or simply that Windows can not you what is showing. To that end, here are instructions on how show extensions and see all the files , two things that somebody decided not to default in Windows, to contribute more effectively to the spread of malware .
Finally, I will recommend the best protection mechanism against these threats I have ever known. I had my first flash memory: 128k a Commodore. It was a tiny eyelash in one of its sides, just as on the diskettes, prevented one of its two positions the writing on the unit. This is the best prophylactic there: a unit can not write, you can not infect . Apparently, manufacturers have decided that one of every thousand users concerned about the safety of its units are market share is too small to worry about placing the eyelash on their devices, so today is very difficult as finding them. Anyway, if your next purchase decision can take this into account, it will be good for you and be good for everyone.