USB drive virus He##

I am teaching at a university in China, and all of the schools computers have viruses. I keep my laptop clean (with AVG, S&D, and Ad-Aware) but every time I plug my USB drive into a chinese computer, I get a new virus. Last week I got one that changed all my files into .exe's (which were viruses) and couldn't recover anything.

Is there a way to protect my USB drive? Like turning it into a 'read only' drive from my laptop? No need for me to save anything from the school computers... Or maybe a program that I can put on my USB to protect it?

My only idea is to put a condom on the USB drive... 98% effective against viruses I've heard... but I'm worried the lubricant might cause a short

 

I spent some time researching this as I found the idea interesting and practical. I found a few things: you can perform a regedit on the PC you want to plug your thumb drive into; do this BEFORE you plug in, and you should be safe. Here's the hack:

And here's a link to a bit of software called 'USB-Blocker'. Check out the ReadMe.txt before downloading to make sure it's what you're looking for:
http://downloads.adslweb.net/win32/forensics/USB-Blocker/
And there's something called a 'writeblocker' and from what I can tell, they aren't free. They're not cheap either....

The credit for the regedit hack goes to cyberforge's forums....

Good luck!

 

You could probably write a .REG file with the above 'hack', save it to your USB drive. Then write an autorun.inf file and save it to your USB drive also; have the autorun file launch the .REG file. So every time you plug the USB drive into a PC, it automatically will write protect your drive by merging your .REG file into the PC's registry. But you'd have to remember to remove the reg entry when you unplug the drive

EDIT: I forgot to mention in my first post that some companies make USB thumb drives with an actual switch that will write protect the drive when you flip it. I know Imation is one of these companies.... but these drives are about twice or 3 times the cost of a standard USB thumb drive.

 

Thanks for the ideas.

I don't really want to mess with the registry for several reasons, primarily because the computers giving me problems aren't mine. Other teachers use the computers, and may want to save to the computers.
Besides, I have limited time before class and after, so after booting the virus-ridden POS's up, the bell is ringing.

I like your idea of an autorun file, but I have 2 questions: First, would the autorun go before the virus was installed? I don't know a lot about that kind of thing, but it would defeat the purpose if the virus got written to the disk as soon as windows recognizes it. Also, the computers do have some sort of virus protection/firewall, I think, but they are in Chinese. Anyway, a program that automatically changes the registry might be blocked by a holistic program, right?

If those 2 problems aren't an issue, how difficult would it be to write that autorun ini and a second regedit program to restore the settings? A simple file on the disk that you run once and removes the key... if the program was small, you could copy it to desktop, remove the USB, run the program, and delete the program in 30 seconds...

I know nothing about programming. I know a lot about some software and hardware, but I couldn't write anything resembling a useful program, no matter how simple... It would be awesome if someone could make a simple program and put it here on MG... hell, I'd donate 5$ if it was shareware.

 

I wouldn't worry about the registry if I were you. If the computers are set up as regular user accounts, I don't know if you'll be able to access the registry anyway.

IMO, the easiest solution that I could find is to buy something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_g...url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=sd+reader

It's a USB SD memory card reader. Then you can buy an SD card which all have a write lock switch on them anymore. i.e. http://www.vavolo.com/C/27SD-4GB_1.JPG That should do exactly what you need.

 

You know, I actually have a disk just like that for my camera... 512, but it'll get the job done... so all I need is the reader! Awesome.

 

If you need to read only, why not just burn the contents of your USB drive to a CD? To be extra safe, you could even finalize the disc so no further writing to it would be possible (but I'm pretty sure it's impossible to write data to a CD without knowing about it).

 

If you need to read only, why not just burn the contents of your USB drive to a CD? To be extra safe, you could even finalize the disc so no further writing to it would be possible (but I'm pretty sure it's impossible to write data to a CD without knowing about it).

BTW- I'm messing around with writing the autorun file I mentioned earlier... I'll PM you when/if I get it perfected. I'm usually very busy and don't have much free time, but I'll let you know in a week or so

 

I would burn a CD, but I teach 2 separate lessons to 4 classes each week, so I am constantly changing the content. I make the powerpoints on my laptop and show them in class, then I tend to modify them based on what worked. So it would take like 4-5 CD's a week. I could maybe get a CD-RW disk, but the time it takes to burn is kind of a pain, and it would get scratched between classes.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll keep checking my PM's.

Merry Christmas everyone.