Pen drive security........

[therockstar920]

I am presently working at a training institute having plenty of viruses in the the pc's there and i have to use my pen drive regularly for transfering data to my home pc. Can you suggest any way to prevent entry of virus into my pen drive so that no harm is caused to my home pc??????????

[krone6]

Look into the "iron key" pen drive. It's suppose to be the most secure. Otherwise buy a cheapo 4GB one that you can format often. It will get rid of most malware...

[OldSchoolPC]

Another option is to put a blank "Autorun.inf" on the thumb drive and set the attribute to "read-only". You can make it using Notepad. Just save it as an INF. This way, if a virus tries to make it's own autorun script it cannot, because there is already an Autorun file there. It can't copy over it because it's write-protected (read-only). Of course, that will only protect you from certain types of viruses.

[williamapm]

Hi. I´m new to the forums, and by no means whatsoever an expert on anything computer-related. I believe I have the same problem as the poster, but with the sad case that this pen drive actually infected my home laptop (HP - Windows Vista) while transferring simple .wav and .pdf files).
This is the problem. Absolutely all my icons on the desktop, whether it was adobe reader or audacity, all icons changed to internet explorer ones. All application were changed to .LNK files and I cannot open anything. I deleted the icons but did not uninstall anything. What can I do about this? I´ve already learned to re-format the pen drive often, but my home laptop is screwed up. I would appreciate absolutely anything that can help my situation. Thanks.

[JCB]

Originally Posted by OldSchoolPC

Another option is to put a blank "Autorun.inf" on the thumb drive and set the attribute to "read-only". You can make it using Notepad. Just save it as an INF. This way, if a virus tries to make it's own autorun script it cannot, because there is already an Autorun file there. It can't copy over it because it's write-protected (read-only). Of course, that will only protect you from certain types of viruses.

thats a good idea, this could also help http://www.computerforums.org/comput...-a-103788.html

but the best solution is to make sure the PC you put the drive in has anti-virus installed

[berry120]

The easiest way is simply to run a virus scan on the pen drive each time you insert it into your home PC. Even then though it's possible some viruses will still escape and infect your computer, though it does make it much less likely.

In all honesty the best way would be to find another mechanism to do what you want to do. Does it have to be a pendrive? Could you not put the files on a remote server you get to from home?

Hi. I´m new to the forums, and by no means whatsoever an expert on anything computer-related. I believe I have the same problem as the poster, but with the sad case that this pen drive actually infected my home laptop (HP - Windows Vista) while transferring simple .wav and .pdf files).
This is the problem. Absolutely all my icons on the desktop, whether it was adobe reader or audacity, all icons changed to internet explorer ones. All application were changed to .LNK files and I cannot open anything. I deleted the icons but did not uninstall anything. What can I do about this? I´ve already learned to re-format the pen drive often, but my home laptop is screwed up. I would appreciate absolutely anything that can help my situation. Thanks.

Better to start a new thread for a separate problem, but have you run a full virus scan? If you've done that and it's all ok you may need to recreate the shortcuts manually (you could just drag them from your start menu if they're still there.)

[MyDigitalpoint]

Originally Posted by krone6

Look into the "iron key" pen drive. It's suppose to be the most secure. Otherwise buy a cheapo 4GB one that you can format often. It will get rid of most malware...

I found the best way to secure your information when using public computers is having small-sized pen drives or USB sticks that you can format over and over, because any other security method helped me out, and some virus seems to be able to write on protected removable files somehow.

[officemanager]

Originally Posted by therockstar920

I am presently working at a training institute having plenty of viruses in the the pc's there and i have to use my pen drive regularly for transfering data to my home pc. Can you suggest any way to prevent entry of virus into my pen drive so that no harm is caused to my home pc??????????

Other than have a good anyivirus program on your PC there are some good answers posted here to protect your self.

What I cannot understand is why the training institution has plenty of viruses on their system, don't they have an antivirus software on their computers...What protection are they offering and why are you using a system prone to infections... In all honesty I would not even consider to use a system that is flawed.
Why are you getting files infected from them unless you are downloading things you should be not doing.