Autorun Eater malware stopper

I was happy to see Autorun Eater on today's MG front page (link: http://www.majorgeeks.com/Autorun_Eater_d6074.html ). Finally, an app aimed directly at the nasty autorun infection that has nailed my flash drives numerous times. I have a question.... do I install it on my PC or on my flash drive, or both?

:-D

 

I am wondering, the old trick of holding the left shift key when inserting a cd/dvd also will it work with a usb drive and combat things from autorun(ing) from a usb drive. I find myself holding it down out of habit.

 

Thanks guys! I'll be installing it on my home PC tonight right when I get home. So... another question.... is there something I can load to a flash drive, or something I can do to a flash drive, to prevent it from getting infected in the first place? I work on TONS of infected PCs and use my flash drive all the time on these infected system for installing software, running scans, using portable apps like Firefox and CCleaner, etc. The last thing I need is to spread the viruses that I'm trying to kill (which I did accidentally a few weeks ago- my flash drive got infected I used it on 3 other PCs and ended up infecting them too and had to spend more time cleaning them up)....
Thanks!

 

Hi dlb,

You might want to try an idea I've been toying with. Buy an SD card(as large as you want), copy all the programs you would use to it, slide the switch on the SD card to "read-only".

Now get yourself a USB to SD card adapter, plug the SD card into the adapter and install the programs you want. Since the SD card is set to "read-only" in theory it can't be infected by the computer you're installing the programs on to.

Let me know what you think and how it works.

 

Well, I installed Autorun Eater on my main work PCs, and on my home PC. And about 5 minutes ago, I had a hard drive I pulled from a laptop, and I was hooking it up via USB to a work PC to recover some data for a dude... Autorun Eater jumped in and warned me that a malicious suspicious Autorun was trying to run and trying to copy itself to C:. So, long story short (it may be too late for that rolleyes :-o ) Autorun Eater totally kicks a**!!!! I give it a solid 5 stars!!!

[dlb]
:-D

 

ugh...the download page is blank :confused

 

How about the idea of creating a folder named autorun.inf on the root of your flash drive, then creating a so called un-deleteable CON folder within that...

I read about it here

 

Interesting that you should mention this... I thought about creating my own autorun.inf file and setting it to 'read only', but this is the first I have heard about this 'undeleteable CON folder'. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. But in the meantime, Autorun Eater works freakin' beautifully!!!!

 

I don't actually know if it works or not as I don't have an infected machine to test it out.
From what I have read, some malware can change the read only status of your own autorun.inf file, but, maybe someone more knowledgeable can shed some light?

I just installed autorun eater on my own machine... just in case.

 

I just now looked into the whole CON folder thing. Very strange that it is difficult to even create a folder named CON, let alone delete a folder named CON. Seriously... try it. Try it now. Try to create a folder named CON. Lower case, upper case, it doesn't matter. Other very strange Windows 'magic' can be found at the link I'm about to post in the 'Interesting Web Links' forum. Here: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=192051

Good idea. Until about 8 months ago, I thought "I'll never get virus on my flash drive. Sure, I've heard about it, but I've never actually seen it happen. I'll be OK". Since I fix PCs more-or-less full time, I was somewhat jaded (and cocky) and figured the that the whole a-virus-can-jump-on-to-your-USB-flash-drive thing was crapola... until it happened. And it's happened about 4 or 5 times. I deal with many, MANY infected PCs on a daily basis, and I use my flash drive on many of these infected PCs, and I occasionally need to use the flash drive on my home PC. These infections are the only infections I've ever had on my home PC (except for one "drive-by" last year), and now that I have Autorun Eater, I'm much more relaxed about using my flash drive at home and at work. For awhile, I had FOUR flash drives on my keychain!!! roflmao LOL

 

What about if you made "read only" CD/DVD with all the important tools/apps on there (update once a month say) and that way you would "significantly" minimise the risk of "cross contamination". There are some extreme nasties that can try and write on "read only material" but I doubt you will ever encounter those in the "domestic environment".

 

Hi

I personally have used Panda USB vaccine in the past. It is installed on the PC, and then it's also used to "vaccine" USB drives so they won't get infected.

http://majorgeeks.com/Panda_USB_and_AutoRun_Vaccine_d6029.html

However, I keep Autoplay disabled on my machines anyway (Start, Default Programs, Change Autoplay Settings, untick the very top box on the left, click Save). Not only is it a threat, but I'm faster than Autoplay in starting the task I wish to do with removable media... it's just a nuisance to me.

I also have special USB drives that have a read-write protection physical switch on them, much like an SD card but without needing a card reader/adapter obviously. I use these to load anti-malware programs on infected machines without the chance of the sticks getting infected. I found them on Newegg awhile back... they're made by PQI. I don't think Newegg has them anymore, but this is them here:

http://www.pqi.com.tw/product2.asp?cate1=18&proid=13