You may want to block USB mass storage device to disallow the unauthorized use of pendrives or you may want to unblock USB mass storage device to get access (most of the case in college’s net lab).
Well, this can be done by a simple registry tweak. Before doing so, I recommend taking a backup of the registry because playing with registry can be harmful for your OS. Read (How to backup your windows registry). When you have backup the key :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR proceed further.
To disable access
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR] “Start”=dword:00000004
To enable access
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR] “Start”=dword:00000003
Copy the required code to a text file and save it as *.reg file. Just open that file and information will be added to the registry.
Source : Thinkdigit Forum
How viruses spread from USB/Thumb/Pen drive?
Whenever a USB drive is plugged into a infected computer, virus copies itself to the pen drive and sets it to execute itself when pen drive is accessed by making changes in the autorun.inf. Whenever pen drive is accessed, the autorun.inf calls the executable file of the virus upon which the system gets infected.
How to save your computer from viruses from USB/Thumb/Pen drive?
The most effective method of preventing your system from getting infected is to disable autorun feature of USB devices. DJ tells us about disabling autorun feature on Sizlopedia. He tells us a method in which he uses gpedit.msc and disable autorun feature but the problem is that gpedit.msc is not available under Windows XP Home Edition.
So, I am going to explain how to disable USB autorun feature through registry editing which not only works for WInXP Home but also for any other edition of Windows.
- Browse to the following key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
- Modify the value of NoDriveTypeAutoRun to df (hexadecimal)
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