USB Safety Tips

If you've used a removable USB device on many different computers, it is possible that the device has gotten infected. Getting a virus or malware from a USB device is very common. There are many things you can do to protect your computer and USB device from becoming infected.

Protect Your USB Device

To keep your USB device safe, you can get a USB stick antivirus. This software acts as a protector for your USB device and keeps it from getting infected. Secondly, you can also restrict connecting your removable USB device to only trusted computers. By "trusted computers", we are talking about a machine with good and up-to-date Internet security software. You can never be too careful when it comes to this.

Protect your Computer

In order to ensure that you don't distribute malware with a removable USB device, you must keep your machine free of all sorts of computer security threats. You do this by having a good antivirus and spyware removal tool. Regularly scanning a computer system for spyware and viruses is important. As a standard security practice, your computer firewall must always be turned on as well. Last, always ensure that your computer operating system and other software programs are up-to-date.

USB Write Protection

Apart from avoiding dangerous Web sites, unsolicited emails, attachments, and malicious downloads, it is best to go the extra mile – get a USB device with a write protect feature. With a 'write protector feature', no file can be copied to your USB device without your outright permission. This can help keep unwanted files off of your USB device. So, the next time you go out shopping for a USB drive, always look for one with USB write protection. If you have a USB drive without a write protector, you can buy one from a third-party vendor and install it via your computer.