usb scanners

are they unnecessary. Hardly anyone makes them the only one i know is panda vaccine and im not sure if it even scann's you usb ports. if you get infected through the usb port wouldn't a normal av and am handle it the same? avast, malwarebytes, adaware, avira, hitman pro

 

Panda USB Vaccine is not a scanner. It simply creates a write-protected empty autorun.inf file to USB drive. I am not sure but it might also prevent autoruns from USB. I only use it to vaccine my sticks

When talking about actually scanning USB memory, some software such as KIS offers the option to scan contents of USB stick when it is inserted. So yes, it's just your regular File AV which scans them.

 

Like lordpake said you need no special av for your usb drives. You just need an AV that prompts for a scan when you connect a usb drive. You should also disable autorun in general. I think Windows 7 has it off by default.

Another AV that detects usb drives is Vipre.

 

Avira Free is automatic block autorun.inf from USB Flash.

 

All AV's scan files run from USB, some at higher settings and some give a pop-up to scan the entire drive. Disabling auto-run in windows is still the safest.

 

what about for protection formatting your external hard drive occasionally. Moving all of your files from your external harddrive to your local and formatting it and then putting your files back to the hard drive?

 

Rising PC Doctor offers the same method of immunization. It's fine, but it also overwrites legitimate autorun.inf files used for custom icons and labels. Is there a way to lock custom autorun.inf files?

 

Off-topic but too much hassle IMO... better use a virgin hard drive image... roll back if needed...

Also check this thread out: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=282804
USB protection should be, IMO, non-intrusive and user friendly, system vaccination causes trouble with legit autorun code...

 

why do you need a software to disable autorun cant you go to control panel and click on take action and disable all of the autoplay options?

 

XP alone had/has too many problems with blocking this without some kind of 3rd party/user intervention (even after Microsoft tried to alleviate the issue (via Windows Update.)) Vista and Win 7 are better because they at least ask before they run anything.

The other issue is the flash drive itself. IMO, it's worth trying something to keep it from having a bad autorun.inf installed to it. All of my flash drives have the Panda locked autorun.inf file on them.