4 Tools To Protect USB Flash Drive/Pendrives From Virus

Often,our systems get infected with viruses soon after a USB pendrive has been plugged in. It is so easy to get infected these days by viruses after plugging in a pendrive to your system from unknown source (may be your friends one). Not all the security programs can defend your PC against the virus attacks carried out through USB drives. But if we can take the necessary steps, staying safe from such viruses, worms and spywares spreading through pendrives/ flash drives may not be difficult at all. Here are some softwares that can efficiently protect your system and flash drives from unknown threats and viruses.

1) USB Write Protector : It is a software that can help you write protecting your Pendrive. USB Write Protector only allows data to be read from the pendrives, but it won’t permit  data to be written into the pendrive. This is really useful for taking your pendrive and plugging it into your friends’ or relatives’ PC, as most viruses enter pendrives unknowingly. USB Write Protector is a small program, around 190kb in size.

After downloading the program, there’s no need for installation. Just run the program and a window will show up with just two options: Enable write Protection in your USB Flash Drive, or to Turn Off the USB Write Protection. Its that simple. You just need to pick the option and click on OK.

Download USB Write Protector

2) USB FireWall : As mentioned above, USB write protect software protects your pendrive from viruses. USB firewall likewise protects your PC from viruses. The software protects your system from security threats by launching itself as soon as a USB peripheral is inserted. As soon as USB firewall is launched it works in the background and a window appears when some program tries to launch out automatically from a peripheral USB. USBFireWall is also able to scan all your partitions for auto launched programs and delete the respective autorun file.

USB Firewall is 3.3 MB in size.

Download USB Firewall || Download USB Firewall (Direct Link)

3) Panda USB Vaccination Tool : It’s a great Tool from Panda that will disable the autorun function from your computer completely and it has a special ability to add a autorun.inf file of its own which can’t be read or deleted or modified. So the autorun virus wont be able to modify it and your system will be safe from the autorun.inf virus even if you plug the pendrive.

You can create a shortcut to the Panda Vaccination Tool with the parameters USBVaccine.exe /resident /hidetray +system and copy the shortcut to the windows startup folder, so that each time a USB device is plugged onto your system, the program popups automatically asking you for vaccination.

Download Panda USB Vaccination Tool

4) USB Guardian : USB Guardian helps you to safely share pictures, movies, documents etc. via your USB pendrive without the risk of being infected by viruses and worms that spread through the pendrives. USB Guardian boasts a clean and simple interface so that so that the user can work with minimum effort.

USB Guardian blocks any programs from being automatically executed from a pendrive and thereby it isolates the autorun directives on the removable device.

USB Guardian then scans for any autorun.inf file on the flash drive to check whether it references to any additional files on the pendrive. If any such files are found it automatically blocks those files.

The Locked files will be inaccessible by any other program and you can unlock it using USB Guardian itself if you think the program is harmless. USB guardian is free for use and is 2.96 MB in size.

Download USB Guardian

Hope these tools will help you in protecting and securing your USB Flash drives/ Pendrive from Viruses and Worms.