Best Way to Secure a USB?

What is the best way and programmes to secure a USB and its contents?

 

Physical read-only switch to prevent modification. Encryption like Rohos Mini to prevent data leakage.

Then there are programs like Panda USB Vaccine, but I don't know how well they work.

 

essentially that is like TrueCrypt file containers or making it a TC drive.

 

Yes, but that only covers data leakage. What's preventing malware from modifying the drive otherwise?

 

usbdummyprotect

 

A physical switch is more surefire, the website itself stated most viruses. Interesting nonetheless, and better than just immunizing autorun.inf.

 

can you elaborate because i seem to be missing a feature of that program when i looked at it or forgot...sorry i am trying to read in my sleep and have cleared through like 15 threads in the last 2 hours. Plus links and googling :/

 

Not sure exactly what you're asking. But I buy them hardware encrypted, like Kingston's Data Traveler Vault Privacy.

And I have Sandboxie running realtime with a sandbox, aptly named "Realtime" where I force all external drives and USB ports.

So those 2 measures would protect me from any USB stick anyone plugs into my computer, or my USB stick when plugging it into other people's boxes. But then this is pretty moot because I don't do either unless it's absolutely vital. I consider it like unprotected sex... I don't know where their stuff has been.

 

ok sorry but cna you elaborate a little farther and give me a link to what your talking about because i "think" i get what your saying. Essentially anything plugged into USB that is mass storage won't work unless you ok it? This prevents auto run crap and stuff. I might want to do that....i don't trust my wife when it comes to that stuff :/

I know norton just let an auto run virus on my computer...i thought it would automatically stop that -_- my friends Vipre AV did -_- I use kaspersky now after that but it doesn't stop it but at least prompts a scan.... I knew there was a virus on it so i assumed norton would stop it since cheap ass vipre did -_- I had to get some files off of an infected computer that i couldn't clean. I couldn't resist not getting the PDF files on how to lock pick like 90% of locks in the world before i quit my old job

 

Basically encrypting data does't prevent malware from infecting the USB. Even if they cannot use the data against you, it can easily corrupt/destroy.

 

Hopelessly, if you had been using Sandboxie to force your USB drives to open sandboxed, you would have been able to safely plug the USB drive, block the virus from running and recovered/Save the PDF file that you wanted to get out of the infected computer. Sandboxie works very nice for what you wanted to do.

Bo

 

thanks i'll take a look at it....been blocked form site for a while....ips attack or something. So far my computer seems clean and the other ones too. I tried using my cell phone on 3g and it said it was blocked due to ips attack so i am lost -_-

malwarebits
superantispyware
tdsskiller
jrt
rougekiller



going through the list now....only on second one :/

I love how AV software somehow never blocks malware -_- I swear malwarebits creates their own impossible to find malware to try to force people to pay for their crap. Only places i could think of getting malware is someone in the house got it or TOR or my new phone....so i am at a loss....well several hours wasted now with trying to figure out if i am infected or the site is being dumb.

 

In a perfect world, the absolute only way to do it is a USB stick with hardware encryption with read/write switching.

USB sticks are actually quite a security nightmare since someone can infect them with literally 7 seconds of time alone with it.

I personally use a GoldKey which is hardware encrypted. It doesn't have a read/write switch but I never ever use USB devices except on my most secured computers.

 

i am not worried about someone destroying the files since i have backups i just want them to be safe from being cracked. I find hardware encrypted USB drives way to weak...like AES 128 or AES 256 :/ That isn't that hard to crack these days

 

Actually AES-128 remains incredibly strong. However, many USB drive encryption solutions take shortcuts and do stupid things that make them easy to break or bypass. Implementing crypto is easy to screw up. It's the implementations of AES that are a problem, not AES itself.

A product like GoldKey is FIPS certified to do it correctly, and it does it on in its own active processor on the device itself.

 

is it fast.....i use sandisk extreme 64 GB USB drive and it is one of the fastest drives on the market...i really don't want to deal with taking 24 hours to transfer 20GB of files when i can average 30-150MBps :/

run a crystaldiskmark on it for me. and post it. I can even run programs from my USB drive and it'll feel like 1st/2nd gen SSD

let me know when i can get at least 50% of this...all i am asking is 50%...The 4k is where the money is at. Finding usb drives with good 4k is hard.

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/7066/zlqt.png

 

lucygrl,

here's a method you might like.

 

Good post wat0114, thanks for the link. In theory a consumer-grade USB-based infection probably wouldn't bypass those settings. It's a good solution.

 

hey flame is still in the wild

 

You're welcome, although pandlouk gets the credit for creating a very informative thread on it I would think it to be an airtight solution for a USB drive.

 

I'm guessing Ntfs Drive Protection automates pandlouk's method. Can someone confirm or disconfirm?