The Rise in Autorun based Malware

The Rise in Autorun based Malware

Thursday November 20, 2008

Posted by Vinoo Thomas

Most folks associate computer viruses and other prevalent malware with the Internet. Not quite. The earliest computer threats came from the era of floppy disks and removable media. However, with the arrival of the Internet, email and network based attacks became the preferred vector for hackers to spread malicious code and the issues with removable media took a back seat.

http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/ind...n-based-malware

Download Flash_Disinfector.exe

http://www.techsupportforum.com/sectools/s...Disinfector.exe

o Double-click Flash_Disinfector.exe to run it and follow any prompts that may appear.

o The utility may ask you to insert your flash drive and/or other removable drives. Please do so and allow the utility to clean up those drives as well.

o Wait until it has finished scanning and then exit the program.

o Reboot your computer when done.

Note: Flash_Disinfector will create a hidden folder named autorun.inf in each partition and every USB drive that is plugged in when you ran it. Don't delete this folder...it will help protect your drives from future infection.

Back in the Win98 days I used to use the freeware Bootminder, which would check if a floppy disk was left in the drive and wouldn't allow Windows to automatically shutdown until it was removed.