Using a Mac: create a file on the desktop called autorun.inf. The Mac method is easiest and Macs are pretty common. You can use a Mac, Linux box, or a secured Windows PC with autorun disabled. What you want to do is quickly look at the USB stick with a computer that is safer than the PC's you are going to be using with the sticks later. Windows computers can be set to automatically run software off a USB stick and there might be an autorun.inf file and an executible on the stick that you are concerned with. I have seen viruses spread via USB sticks in an lab environment. In other words after using it to give a file to a colleague just tell them to keep it.

Use good security hygiene such as no plugging in unknown USB devices and not lending out a USB drive. There seems to be no perfect way to avoid USB malware. Most Fortune 500 corporations and the military have rules dictating that such drives should be destroyed, and never plugged into a computer.Įdit: since this was written more sophisticated USB malware has appeared. Lastly, because of these security concerns, promotional USB drives are a very bad promotional items. It's so unlikely that you don't have to worry about it, but if you do, then you'd have to hire an expert to test them. Hackers can do something more nefarious, such as pretend to be a keyboard and inject keystrokes that log the hacker in. Check not just the one you expect, but these additional partitions as well.Īll this assumes the device acts as a normal flash drive.

A recent Mac or Linux machine will probably be safe.īeware that USB drives can have multiple 'partitions', one of which might appear as a CD-ROM drive. For example, you don't want to do this with a Windows machine with autorun enabled, or the virus will hop to your machine, infect it, then hide its files from you. Remember: do this from a machine with the latest patches. If you asked the vendor to put files on the drive, such as promotional materials for you company, then makes sure that the files match precisely. Simply look at the contents of one of the drives.

How to detect malware in mac