Viruses move to USB flash drives
Anti-virus companies report a new trend in the spread of viruses. After a wave of mail and scripting viruses, USB flash drives are now one of the most popular ways to spread malware. This was made possible by the weakness of the Windows operating system, which by default automatically runs the autorun.inf file from a removable drive.
For the first time, viruses that spread in this way (via INF / Autorun), manifested themselves in June 2007, when, according to statistics from ESET Software (NOD32 developer), their share rose to 2.17% of the total number of registered viruses. By the present moment, that is, in just nine months, the number of such viruses has increased to 10.3%.
The most popular viruses in March 2008 included the Win32 / Adware.Virtumonde pop-up window (distributed via USB flash drives), which is very difficult to remove , as well as Mebroot, which uses the classical MBR recording and data storage techniques in hard disk sectors, rather than in files, which complicates its detection, even when it modifies the Windows registry.
According to some experts, the INF / Autorun system from Windows can be considered the main security hole in computer systems. In contrast to sending contagious programs via e-mail, even a competent user is practically unable to prevent infection, because simply inserting the device into the USB connector is irreversible. The only prevention is to disable Autorun altogether, which even security experts from Microsoft itself recommend doing.
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In general, in a sense, the migration of viruses to USB-drives is a return to the origins of virus writing, when the Internet was not yet. Then the viruses spread from computer to computer on floppy disks.
For the first time, viruses that spread in this way (via INF / Autorun), manifested themselves in June 2007, when, according to statistics from ESET Software (NOD32 developer), their share rose to 2.17% of the total number of registered viruses. By the present moment, that is, in just nine months, the number of such viruses has increased to 10.3%.
The most popular viruses in March 2008 included the Win32 / Adware.Virtumonde pop-up window (distributed via USB flash drives), which is very difficult to remove , as well as Mebroot, which uses the classical MBR recording and data storage techniques in hard disk sectors, rather than in files, which complicates its detection, even when it modifies the Windows registry.
According to some experts, the INF / Autorun system from Windows can be considered the main security hole in computer systems. In contrast to sending contagious programs via e-mail, even a competent user is practically unable to prevent infection, because simply inserting the device into the USB connector is irreversible. The only prevention is to disable Autorun altogether, which even security experts from Microsoft itself recommend doing.
')
In general, in a sense, the migration of viruses to USB-drives is a return to the origins of virus writing, when the Internet was not yet. Then the viruses spread from computer to computer on floppy disks.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/22849/
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