How safe is your USB drive?
Whare are some of the key
security risks to be aware of when using USB flash drives and how can you
mitigate the threats?
By Amer Owaida
Most of you probably own at
least one USB thumb drive, which you typically use either to transfer data or
as a backup for sensitive documents. Alternatively, you may like to carry your work
with you so you can dive into it at a moment’s notice. So, if you only plug the
flash drive into machines you trust, most of the time you should be safe.
Unfortunately, if you’re
like most people, you may not always use only trustworthy devices. For example,
students tend to use flash drives to print out their study materials and other
documents at print shops or libraries.
They also tend to allow
their classmates to borrow them or pass them around. And these practices aren’t
just limited to students. Since you can’t tell how either the print shop or
your friends manage their devices, or what their approach to cybersecurity is,
you can’t be sure about anything.
If any of those devices has
been infested with malware, it’s highly possible that your drive is now
infested as well, or your files copied from it for nefarious purposes. When you
plug your USB stick into your own computer, then the malware will probably
spread to it too. This is known as cross-contamination and is a common way for
malicious code to spread.
Another thing you have to
watch out for is what data you store on your drives. Although you may consider
it highly unlikely, there is always a chance that you may misplace it, or it
may be stolen. If that happens: at best, the only loss you incur is the flash
drive with some useless data; at worst, it may contain data that can be
exploited by whoever found it or stole it.
The above-listed examples
are just some of the reasons why some companies, such as IBM, opted to ban removable storage devices
altogether. The risks are just
too high.