AKS™ – Feel The Change!

       Previously, I’ve shared with you few articles on USB security- how Disable AUTORUN.INF ,USB firewall and ikill. Today I’ve another software to share with you which protects your PC  from USB viruses i.e Naevius USB Antivirus.

     As you know, almost virus, trojan, worms is spreaded from USB storage devices. This is including USB Flash drive, removable hard disk, Memory card, SD, MicroSD, MMC, USB Camera, USB Audio player, Mobile phone, iPod, Iphone etc.

       Other antivirus software should update signature database regularly, and they can not effectively protect offline computer that is not connected to the Internet. When new viruses, worms and other malicious attacks strike, traditional signatures are insufficient. 

   Beside the common antivirus, there is another antivirus that is designed for USB Flash drive and other media based on USB. And its completely free, easy to use and small memory usage.

   Naevius USB Antivirus gives you full freedom for securely using your removable usb drives!

Key features :-

• Protection against any Trojans, spyware, worms via USB storage.
• Compatible with any antivirus resident like for example: BitDefender, Nod32, Kaspersky, AVG, Norton, McAfee, Panda, AVAST etc.
• Protection in realtime with.
• 100% free.

Download Naevius USB Antivirus v1.0

(contains new blog links)

           USB drives are simple to carry, but easy to misplace and that can be risky with sensitive information. Rohos Mini Drive is a freeware app that safeguards personal documents by creating a password-protected partition on your flash drive.

        The download actually installs two programs. One, Rohos Mini Drive, is the partition manager that self-installs as a portable app on the drive when you create the partition. The second, Rohos Disk Browser, is a portable file manager, which can be useful when the encrypted partition can’t be read by the host computer.

        Operating Rohos Mini Drive is fairly straightforward. Plug in your portable drive and start the program. You should see three choices: Set up USB flash drive, Change password, and Options. Setting up the drive requires choosing a password–that’s it. Depending on the size of the drive, creating the partition should happen reasonably quickly. Once the partition has been created, you can change the disk size and partition drive letter. The Rohos Disk Browser displays and manipulate items in the protected partition. Single-click functions include open, saving, deleting, and displaying file properties. Searching and opening the partition is also easily selected from a short pull-down menu.

           Rohos Mini Drive includes features to open the protected drive on systems where the user doesn’t have administrator rights. That makes this app easy to use anywhere from public library labs to your best friend’s system. I recommend this application for all experienced users needing to transport personal files.

For more information visit Rohos Mini Drive v 1.3

Download Rohos Mini Drive v1.3

     Yesterday,I’ve shared with you a registry hack which will stop Windows from executing instructions found in autorun.inf. Good thing is your computer will never be infected by virus through the autorun.inf method. The downside of using this hack is that if you insert a CD or DVD with software on it, you have to explore it by hand to find the setup program and also the autorun.inf file will still remain at the root of the drive and could possibly infect other computer if it doesn?t have any protection against autorun.inf threats. If you want Windows to continue processing autorun.inf file for CD or DVD and also want to protect your computer from USB flash drive autorun.inf. Here is a USB firewall software for Windows which is able to accomplish that.

      Net Studio USB FireWall:- USB FireWall is an application that protects you from all malicious programs which try to launch itself as soon as a  USB is inserted. It will inform you if ever such a program is in one of your peripherals USB. You can remove the malicious file and the file autorun.inf, which launches it with the "Delete" button.

   As soon as USB FireWall is launched, it works in the background. Its window is posted only when one program tries to launch out automatically, since a peripheral USB.
  USB FireWall is freeware and its functionality is limited, if ever the malicious program is already present in your system, it tries to stop it but a patch or an Antivirus program is adapted much more to this kind of problem.
  USB FireWall is ahead – first with Windows Optimum, which makes much more than to stop or remove a file or to kill a program.

  USB FireWall can also clean all your partitions for auto launched Application from partition by deleting autorun file and its associated applications

  The good thing about USB FireWall is that it doesn’t need any virus definition update because it is designed to detect autorun.inf file from USB storage drives.

    This tool only monitors the USB device and ignores CD or DVD drives.This can pose a problem because the hacker can still use a hacked U3 smart drive which has the capability of emulating a CD drive to infect the computer with virus or steal sensitive data. USB FireWall is not THE perfect tool to protect your computer from USB autorun threats, but it does provide some level of protection, while still allowing autorun.inf file to be processed. Using USB FireWall has an advantage over the registry hack and that is to alert me when my USB contains autorun.inf so I don’t accidentally use my USB flash drive to infect other people’s computer with virus.

     If you ask me which method I?d prefer to use to protect myself from autorun.inf threats, I?d go with the registry hack. It’s simple and don’t require any third party tools.

Download USB FIREWALL1.1.2

Some people think that the autorun.inf file is a virus. Well it’s not. Autorun.inf is a system file used by operating systems like Windows to automatically run programs when a removable media like a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or a USB Flash is inserted. For the sake of convenience, software distributed on a disc can automatically start an installer when the disc is inserted using this feature.

  Unfortunately,this feature pose a security threat.When the user does not expect or intend to run the software, such as in the case of some viruses, which takes advantage of this feature to propagate. A feature in Windows has became a flaw?

Turning AutoPlay off is not a solution because when you open the drive from My Computer, Windows will still execute the instructions found in autorun.inf.

There is a difference between Autoplay and Autorun.Autoplay is when you insert a CD/DVD or USB flash drive,  you get a dialog box that ask you what do you want Windows to do.

As for autorun,it will run an executable file instructed by autorun.inf file. There is no chance for you to Cancel autorun at all

There are two ways to disable autorun.

1. Click Start->Run? or press the Window+R key on the keyboard to show the Run dialog box.

  2.   Type  regedit then hit Enter to execute the Registry Editor.

    3.On the left, panel double click the folders to expand and go to

              HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindows
        CurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer

   4.Once there,Check the right panel and double click the NoDriveTypeAutoRun registry key.

   5.  On the Value Data, type FF for Hexadecimal or 255 for Decimal value.

   6. Change the NoDriveTypeAutorun’s valueto255(orFF in Hexadecimal)

    7. Close the Registry Editor and restart the computer.

                                                OR

Here is the registry key that you should use to globally block autorun.inf. Open notepad or any text editor, copy the text below and save it as NoAutoRun.reg. Make sure the extension is .reg and not .txt. Run it and click Yes if you?re asked ?Are you sure you want to add the information in C:NoAutoRun.reg to the registry??

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionIniFileMappingAutorun.inf]
@="@SYS:DoesNotExist"

The problem with this hack is that your installer CDs or DVDs will no longer launch the installer automatically.You have to explore it by hand to find the setup program which I think isn’t a big deal compared to being infected by virus and having to spend hours to scan and clean it.