{"id":1707,"date":"2016-10-03T17:12:22","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T17:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tsisupport.com\/?p=1707"},"modified":"2021-07-22T03:49:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T07:49:59","slug":"lost-found-dangers-mystery-usb-drives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tsisupport.com\/tsistaging\/?p=1707","title":{"rendered":"Network Security Best Practices: What To Do With A Mysterious Thumbdrive"},"content":{"rendered":"

So if you found a USB Stick in the parking lot this morning, what would you do?\u00a0 What if you found one in the course of your job, in a rental car, or in a \u201cLost & Found\u201d box in your office?\u00a0 You would be curious to see what is on the drive or inclined to try and locate who it belongs to.\u00a0 What would you consider the chances are you\u2019d plug it into your work or personal computer? A study conducted by Google, the University of Illinois, and University of Michigan show these small USB drives \/ USB Thumb Drives \/ USB Sticks are lost all the time, in all sorts of places, from taxies, to dry cleaners and parking lots.\u00a0 Generally, the data isn\u2019t encrypted, and the only way to find out who it belongs to is to plug it in to see if there are any clues.\u00a0 Malware developers, cyber-criminals, and governments have been known to utilize this delivery method in the past.\u00a0 In the study, 297 USB drives were dropped around a college campus, placed in strategic locations for people to pick up.\u00a0 It was proven to be highly effective in infecting devices, with the first incident occurring in less than six minutes after being left behind. Perhaps some could argue that the study was skewed with the social experiment being conducted on a college campus.\u00a0 However, a real-world example would be the \u201cStuxnet<\/a>\u201d case where a USB Drive was found in the Bushehr nuclear plant parking lot and unwittingly plugged in to the facility\u2019s network. The drive contained a worm specifically designed to infiltrate the target. It remained undetected until much later, when it spread well beyond the intended confines, reaching over 45K computers worldwide. Results of the study also concluded nearly half the people who picked up a found USB drive plugged it into a computer connected to the internet.\u00a0 While most were acting in good faith, the conclusions clearly demonstrated an effective way to spread malware by dropping a USB drive in the proximity of the intended target organization. So by now you are asking yourself, what can you do if you find a USB drive and want to locate the owner without putting yourself at risk?\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately, the only real way to see the contents of a USB drive is to put it into a machine that will not allow writing of any files to a hard drive.\u00a0 For example, you could boot a PC without a hard drive from a Linux distro bootable DVD \/ CD \/ USB.\u00a0 This would allow you to mount the \u201cfound\u201d USB drive and view files.\u00a0\u00a0 While one of the safest methods, it is generally beyond the average person\u2019s technical capabilities; it\u2019s why the best thing you should do is turn it in to a lost and found. Be sure to warn whoever you turn it in to, to not plug it into any computers without having a trained IT professional who is capable of properly reviewing the content. It is second nature to want to be helpful, but it is important to remember that malware creators and criminals are always seeking ways to exploit such vulnerabilities, particularly while trying to gain access to highly secure networks.\u00a0 So be safe and don\u2019t risk infecting your computer by plugging in a device that doesn\u2019t belong to you.

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So if you found a USB Stick in the parking lot this morning, what would you do?\u00a0 What if you found one in the course of your job, in a rental car, or in a \u201cLost & Found\u201d box in your office?\u00a0 You would be curious to see what is on the drive or inclined…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[283,284,242,270,129,21,133,285,286,287],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat to do With a Mysterious Thumbdrive | Dangers of Mystery USBs | TSI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn what to do when you find a mysterious thumbdrive. 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