Prevent Your Computer from Virus Infection Through The USB Drive

USB device is now a very common device to travel data from computer to computer. As it is a faster and portable device and comes with a huge storage capability, people love it to use. As a result the risk of virus infection of your computer becomes very high when you insert any USB device in your computer.(Tip Fix Major USB Problems) Here is some useful ways to  prevent your computer from virus infection through the USB drive (also read Some Important Steps To Remove Virus Manually From Your Computer).
Generally the malware programs are build with the autorun property. An autorun.inf file, located in the usb drive can execute the files as mentioned in the .inf file. So if any USB drive is infected with the malware then obviously, you are getting infected when you insert it in your machine. So it is very tough to prevent your computer from infection. So you should first disable the autorun property.

Disable the Autorun property

• Type gpedit.msc in the “Run” dialogue box of your start menu and hit “Enter”. The shortcut  to reach the Run dialogue box is Windows key + R.
• Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System.

• In the right pane look for the entry “Turn off Autopaly” and double click on it.

• Under “Settings” tab chose “Enable” and then select “All drives”.

• Click “Apply” and “Ok”.

Disabling the Autorun property you may feel more secured. But still if you do not want to take any risk about the virus infection through any USB drive then you can disable your USB ports.

Disable the USB ports from some specific user

If you want to prevent your friends to connect any usb drive in your laptop or PC then you will have to create different user account in Windows and snatch the permission of using USB ports from any user account. To do so

• Open the registry editor from “Run” dialogue box of the Start menu typing “Regedit” there.
• Now navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesUsbStor
• In the right pane double click on “Start” and change the value from 3 to 4.

This will snatch the permission of the other user to access the USB ports. If you want to re-enable it then just roll back the value in 3.

Disable the USB ports physically

If you don’t want to edit your registry, you can disable the USB port physically. That means any body can’t be able to transfer data the USB ports of your computer including you until the ports are enabled. You can disable the USB port physically by the  following ways.

• Open Device Manager by right clicking on My Computer > choose Manage > choose Device Manager in the left pane.
• Look for the entry “Universal bus controller” in the right pane and expand it clicking on the ”+” symbol.

• Find out the entry that represents your USB port. Generally that is “Usb Root Hub”. Now right click on it and chose “Disable “.

Disable the USB port from your BIOS settings
Enter in your BIOS before booting your computer by pressing F10 or as your computer mother board supports. Disable the USB port from there and set a BIOS password so that any one can’t change the BIOS setting in absence of you.