PC Data Security Blog

Worm Attack Forces the U.S. Army to Ban USB Drives

According to news reports, the Army initiated a temporary ban on the use of USB Flash Drives until they could get control of a Worm that propagates itself by installing itself on USB Flash Drives when they are mounted on an infected machine. When the drive is then plugged into another machine it copies itself to the new machine and then tries to download malware from the Internet.

Using a product like Beachhead Solutions’ LDDFlash could have prevented this type of malware attack. LDDFlash forces users to create encrypted vaults on any USB Flash device they plug into the computer. Because Beachhead’s product is driverless and because it creates a vault that encompasses the entire space on the device, the Worm cannot copy itself to the device. Files must be dragged and dropped into the vault after a user name and password is used to open it. Executables cannot be launched from the vault eliminating this threat completely.

A side benefit of this product is the ability destroy the data on the device based on failed logons or if the device is lost or stolen.