taylorfor.blogg.se - External hard drive virus

If you can't keep the machine off the net, run a good secure browser, an ad-blocker and a good script blocking Addon.

Keep windows fully patches to reduce attack vectors.

Open anything you are unsure about on a VM/sandbox to reduce the risk to your host PC.

Don't open attachments from people you don't know/trust.

Some general rules to try and minimise your exposure if you are planning to NOT run AV:

Visiting a website running Flash (which seems to develop a new exploit about twice a day!) can get you infected by a third party site even if the website you are visiting itself is clean.

Visiting an infected website can infect your computer.

Opening unrecognised email attachments/loading word/excel/powerpoint files with embedded virus-riddled macros can infect you.

External Disks are far from the only attack vector:

If you disable AutoRun within windows, you should be a bit safer - but nothing will be as safe as running good quality AV. If a virus can infect that file on a non-clean machine, then it will auto-execute and infect your PC simply by plugging the disk in. A typical example of this is the auto-launching of a software installer when you insert a software CD/DVD/USB. If you don't have antivirus, you can indeed be infected by simply plugging a disk into a machine providing that you have autorun enabled.Īutorun is a function within windows which will scan particular files/locations on any disck (external drive, DVD, CD, USB etc) for a "default" program to run on discovering the disk.