Beware of Freebie USB Sticks; Could Have Worms

I read an article today about the growing concern of worms embedded on USB flash drives. With the popularity of UFDs it’s important to protect yourself so that viruses, worms and identity theft don’t happen to you. This new type of worm is embedded on UFDs, than automatically runs when connected to an operating system.

Computer owners should tread very carefully when plugging an unknown device into their PC as it could have malicious code planted on it.

The best way to prevent a worm or virus from entering your system is disabling the autorun file on your Operating System before connecting the USB thumb drive.

Since memory prices have dropped the USB stick is a hot item for tradeshows, give-aways and direct mailers. For this reason, it’s important to protect yourself from unwanted viruses. In addition, these flash drives could become a big threat to companies as the financial motivation to obtain secure information has big payoffs.

In the article I read, a specific worm was mentioned called the SillyFD-AA and a telling sign you are infected is Internet Explorer includes the phrase “Hacked by 1BYTE” in the title bar. Now, this is an obvious telling-tail, and hackers will become more sophisticated – so just remember, be very leery of free flash drives. Turn off the autorun feature before connecting and scan when connected before viewing/opening any files.

Reference Article