Possible to protect usb thumg drive from getting virus on it?

[Denvers Dawgs]

I'd like to make a PC repair kit (virus apps, portable apps, etc,) and keep them on a usb drive for when I need to help friends/family with pc issues. Is there anyway to protect my thumb drive from getting infected by a virus from someones pc that I am trying to fix?

[Ai Haibara]

Does it have a read-only/lock switch?

There was something posted on here a while back... a way to supposedly protect against autorun viruses by creating a special autorun.inf folder (and a program that would do it for you). But, really, I'd think the only way to prevent it from getting any and all viruses would be to not allow anything to write to the drive, period.

[Denvers Dawgs]

it doesn't have a read-only/switch. I'll see what I can find

[jagabo]

Just buy a new thumb drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007960&IsNodeId=1&bop=A...=1&PageSize=20

[SLK001]

Why don't you just make a CD-ROM for this? Once burned and finalized, there is no more writing.

[jagabo]

Why don't you just make a CD-ROM for this?

Easier to carry around a thumb drive?

[TimA-C]

and easier to keep utils etc. up to date.

Keep a copy of all the utils you have on the thumbdrive in a folder on your hard drive, keep the copies on the hard drive up to date. After each job (or before each job) just clean off the thumbdrive (HP made a util for formatting usb memory sticks if you want to be really thorough) and copy across the latest versions of your favourite apps.

[TBoneit]

Panda USB Vaccine

http://download.cnet.com/1770-20_4-0.html?query=panda+usb+vaccine&tag=srch&searchtype=...dows%2CWebware

You can use it to toggle autorun on your computer on or off as well as vaccinate your USB drives. Not once you do that you will have to format the drive to remove that protection whereas on the computer you can toggle it.

[Denvers Dawgs]

Why don't you just make a CD-ROM for this?

Easier to carry around a thumb drive?

Exactly. I did put it also onto a cd-rw so I can re-update on occasion, was just thinking that the thumb drive is easier to carrry (pocket).

[handyguy]

You could use a mini cd & it won't erase itself unlike a thumbdrive can do.....

[TimA-C]

But it's still a pain having to burn a new disk everytime you update the utils on the disk. Much easier to keep a directory on your hard drive with all the clean, up to date utils you want on the thumbdrive and periodically copy them across to the thumbdrive. My first thumbdrive had a little sliding switch on it which write protected it, I don't know if any thumbdrives out there today have something similar?

Edit: Sorry for adding to an old thread, but I just got an e-mail notification today that this thread had been updated? Weird!

[Denvers Dawgs]

no problem always glad to hear others input.

[SLK001]

A recap:

A USB stick that can be easily written to by the user can also be easily written to by the malicious. Even one with a R/W switch is not infallible (did you forget to set the thing back to write protect once you updated?).

A write-only CD-R cannot be written to by the malicious after the disk is burned. Yes, it is slightly more difficult to produce, but security usually does take the extra effort. I keep my files in a separate directory and use ISObuster to update the iso file, then IMGBurn to burn the disk. More work, yes, but I think that it is worth the extra effort.

[Ai Haibara]

Edit: Sorry for adding to an old thread, but I just got an e-mail notification today that this thread had been updated? Weird!

That's because there was a spam (or at least spam-like) post added to the thread, that was removed.

[lenti_75]

get a SD usb reader; you can lock the SD card

[jman98]

Edit: Sorry for adding to an old thread, but I just got an e-mail notification today that this thread had been updated? Weird!

I think I bitch more than anyone here about people adding to old threads, but this was less than 1 month old and even I won't complain about that. What drives me nuts is when people pull out threads years old, sometimes 6+ years old, to simply say "I have the exact same problem". In general I'd say that if it's more than 6 months old and you don't have a solution to a question but it's more of a "me too" kind of thing you want to say, then you probably shouldn't add to the thread.