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Two-Thirds of Lost USB Drives Carry Malware

Posted by samzenpus on from the bugs-everywhere dept.

itwbennett writes "Antivirus firm Sophos acquired a passel of USB sticks lost by commuters on trains in the Greater Sydney metro area at an auction organized by the Rail Corporation New South Wales. The company analyzed 50 USB sticks and found that not a single one was encrypted and 33 of them were infected with at least one type of malware."

6 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Lost? Riiigghtt... by wjcofkc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can see someone "loosing" a couple in the employee smoking area outside of a bank or large tech company. Lost, sure they were.

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    Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
  2. CityRail = CityFail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is more likely that the USB's got infected when someone at CityRail plugged them in to see if there was 'anything good' stored.

  3. Re:What do you expect .. by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was thinking of a different self-selecting sample- the script kiddies willing to spread malware-infected USB sticks around in public to see which computers phone home.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  4. Re:Mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... which unfortunately doesn't really tell us anything, since they don't mention how many of the uninfected storage devices were like that.

  5. Re:What do you expect .. by BasilBrush · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is it unreasonable to assume there might be some correlation between those people who are less careful with possessions and those who are less careful about encryption/malware, etc.?

    It's not an unreasonable hypothesis to raise. It is unreasonable to assume it's true.

  6. How _would_ you wipe one if you got it? by mbourgon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Okay, so say you find one. Or your relative/friend/coworker gives you one. OR, you need to loan them yours for a few minutes (happens more and more often now that computers don't come with floppies). What then? Once you get it back, how do you wipe it such that you can reuse it, but it doesn't have anything on it? I'd rather not kiss a $3 drive goodbye everytime that happens. On Linux you'd have to mount it, so (IIRC) you'd be able to just format the partition before mounting.

    But how about on Windows. Mac OS? Or if I have autostart (or whatever it's called) off, am I safe? (and yes, I'm pretty sure that last one isn't right).

    --
    "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples