BetaNews: Massive amounts of corporate data now stored on employee USB devices. “There has been a 123 percent increase in the volume of data downloaded to USB devices by employees since working from home has become widespread due to coronavirus. What’s more, according to a report from SaaS data protection company Digital Guardian, 74 percent of that data is subject to organisation data governance policies.”
Ubergizmo: Malware-Laden Fake Best Buy USB Drives Are Being Sent Out In The Mail. “If you happen to receive a letter from Best Buy that comes with a free USB drive inside of it, don’t rejoice just yet. This is because according to a report from Trustwave, it seems that these USB drives are filled with malware that could hijack your computer if you were to insert it into your PC.”
TechCrunch: No, Spotify, you shouldn’t have sent mysterious USB drives to journalists. “Last week, Spotify sent a number of USB drives to reporters with a note: ‘Play me.’ It’s not uncommon for reporters to receive USB drives in the post. Companies distribute USB drives all the time, including at tech conferences, often containing promotional materials or large files, such as videos that would otherwise be difficult to get into as many hands as possible. But anyone with basic security training under their hat — which here at TechCrunch we have — will know to never plug in a USB drive without taking some precautions first.”
USA Today: Ready to ditch your old flash drive? Don’t just erase and recycle. “When it’s time to donate or ditch an old flash drive, deleting your data isn’t enough. The safest way to wipe the slate clean is actually to encrypt it — and that’s not as hard as it sounds.”
Hongkiat: 40 Best Free Thumb Drive Applications (2018). “Thumb drives are one of the most important and useful computer accessories you’ll ever find. These small devices are not just used to carry your data, you can use them for a lot of other functions and that includes running portable apps, and even an entire operating system. So in this post, I am listing down 40 free and useful thumb drive applications. These apps range from portable web browsers, computer games, cybersecurity, and data back up and sync solutions apart from many others.” Long list, decently annotated.
Lifehacker: How To Download All of Wikipedia Onto a USB Flash Drive. “Wikipedia might not always be the most accurate source of information out there, but it is one of those things that I’m constantly thankful is around. You can actually ensure that the site is always there for you, even when you don’t have a web connection, by downloading it in its entirety. We wrote about a way to do this with an open-source app called XOWA last year, but the process is actually even easier.”
Ars Technica: How the CIA infects air-gapped networks. “Documents published Thursday purport to show how the Central Intelligence Agency has used USB drives to infiltrate computers so sensitive they are severed from the Internet to prevent them from being infected.”
Graham Cluley: IBM has been shipping malware-infected USB sticks. “IBM has warned customers that it accidentally shipped a number of malware-infected USB sticks to enterprises ordering its IBM Storwize V3500, V3700 and V5000 Gen 1 flash storage solutions.”
Gizmodo: How to Turn a USB Stick into an Ultra Portable PC. “Who doesn’t hate carrying around their laptop? Even the lightest ones weigh a couple of pounds and can be a huge burden to lug around the city. That’s where portable apps, ones stored on a USB drive, come in. Not only do portable apps let you hop between computers easily, they also keep your main machines clear of clutter and almost as speedy as when you first booted them up. If you’re yet to dive into the wonderful world of portable apps, here’s how you can get started.”
Pro tip: if you get a USB drive in the mail, don’t put it in your computer. “Police are warning Aussies to stay away and never plug in any of the mysterious flash memory devices that have started showing up in people’s mailboxes. Those that haven’t heeded the warning found their machines infected with malware, and police say the USB sticks are considered to be ‘extremely harmful’.”
MakeUseOf: How to Create a Portable Windows To Go USB Drive. “Windows To Go is a version of Windows 8.1 Enterprise designed to run on a portable device such as a USB flash drive or external drive. You can install applications, and work with files stored on the drive, but you’ll have to sync any apps you may have purchased from the Windows Store manually.” I tried to set up something like this around 2007, but never managed it.
For the Linux nerds: 5 Best Linux Distros for Installation on a USB Stick.
A new study finds that people are way too casual about plugging in USB drives they just randomly find. “Researchers from Google, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Michigan, spread 297 USB drives around the Urbana-Champaign campus. They found that 48 percent of the drives were picked up and plugged into a computer, some within minutes of being dropped.” Hey, I’d plug one in too — on a machine I’d booted from a LiveCD.
General USBs have never been that great securitywise, but this is just scary. “Security researchers have discovered a new data-stealing Trojan that makes special use of USB devices in order to spread itself and does not leave any trace of activity on the compromised systems. Dubbed USB Thief ( or Win32/PSW.Stealer.NAI), the malware has the capability of stealthy attacking against air-gapped or isolated computers, warns ESET security firm.” “Air-gapped” are computers which are neither connected to the Internet nor connected to computers which are connected to the Internet.
From UberGizmo: How to password-protect a USB drive. “However, encrypting a whole drive is not always the answer to protecting your data on a USB drive. May be you just have a single document that you need to protect, or a few MBs worth of files, why go through the whole-disk encryption process? In this tutorial, we are going to list simple to complex methods to password-protect a USB drive, you can select the one that fits your needs best.”
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