Secure your USB Stick from autorun and recovery viruses permanently using Command Prompt

USB Stick has obviously made the sharing of Videos, Music, Documents, and Games between different computers easier. USB 3.0 has been introduced to transfer files at speed, multiples of present rate. Have you ever noticed some unfamiliar files which occupy a minor position in your drive and are hard to remove?

Sometimes we do find suspicious files like autorun.inf  after we have received that data stick from some other infected computer. Though antivirus can remove this file but isn’t there is another way to protect your pen drive permanently? Autorun.inf virus can be annoying sometimes which blocks the normal opening of drive leading to errors. CD and DVDs use autorun.inf files to automatically run an application. But such files in a pen drive, being not of a Read only type, can be harmful.

Actually these files are automatically created when connected to any system infected with such worms. Our aim is to install a sort of protection which resists the creation of these files.

COMMONNLY INFECTED FILES

Autorun.inf and files inside RECOVERY folder are two common residences of infection and can immediately spread to other parts of the system if not properly diagnosed.

Autorun Protection

To prevent the automatic creation of Autorun.inf file, we create a folder named “Autorun.inf” which restricts the creation of file with same name in its file registers. Due to the fact that a folder named Autorun.inf is already present in the directory, no file or folder with the same name can be created.

1.   Open command prompt (START>run and type “cmd”)

2.   Assuming your drive’s drive letter to be “J:” type the following commands each line indicates an individual command executed by ENTER key

J:

MD AUTORUN.INF

EXIT

IF YOU GET ANY KIND OF ERROR, READ THE NOTE AT THE END OF THIS POST.

RECOVERY Folder protection

Same thing, create a file named RECOVERY to stop any further creation corresponding to its name.

1.    Open notepad and create an empty file named RECOVERY (with no file extension; you can do this by selecting “All files” in Save as type and removing that “.txt” mark)

2.    Move this file to your drive’s base directory and you’re done.

NOTE: IF YOUR DRIVE IS ALREADY INFECTED, YOU NEED TO FIRST REMOVE THE EXISTING FILES. FIRST EXECUTE THE FOLLOWING IN COMMAND PROMPT WITHOUT OPENING THE DRIVE:

J:

RD RECOVERY /S /Q

ATTRIB AUTORUN.INF –R –H –S

DEL AUTORUN.INF

Now you’re done with cleaning. You can proceed with further steps.