Sunday, April 8, 2012

USB Disk Manager: A Passive Shield against Malwares Spreading through USB

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USB devices are now the most popular offline medium to transport files from one PC to another. It is thus also the next to most popular infection vendor after internet. In a previous post I have written about MCShield that can actively protect you from infections spreading from USB drive. But what about a passive defense!! USB Disk Manager developed by Syed Ghulam Akbar is a tiny freeware that offers quick management on USB drives that you connect everyday to your PC or USB drives that you have.
Features
  • The software is distributed as a Zip archive USBDiskManager.zip [137 Kb]. The extracted executable USB Disk Manager.exe [418 Kb] is standalone or portable. This means you can carry it and execute wherever you want.
  • On executing the software it creates a tray icon.
  • The user interface is easy to use.
  • You can Write Protect USB Disks. This way not only other users can not copy data from your machine to their removable disks, but you can also avoid spreading of the viruses from the their machines to your USB removable disks. So you can easily manage your privacy and at the same time your security. You can turn off the settings any time.
  • You can manage File Execution Control from USB drives. This way no application can be run from these removable devices, thus making your system more secure to the common viruses spread through USB disks.
  • You can Disallow Usage of USB drives on your machine. This way user will not be able to transfer files to and from the USB disks to your machine.So, you can restrict unwanted USB drives and also thereby protect your PC from malware spreading from USB.
  • You can Disable Windows Autorun for USB Disks. Most malicious executable exploit the Windows Autorun feature to automatically run as the USB Disks are plugged-in to the system. By disabling this feature you can shield your system against most of these malwares.
  • Normally only your machine running USB Disk Manager will have the write and execution protection on. In that case, if you want to take your USB disk to your friend's and colleague's machines, your USB disk will be vulnerable to the viruses present on that host machine. So, there is a settings to Automatically Copy The Application to USB Disks as Autorun. By using this setting USB Disk Manager executable will be auto copied to all the USB disks plugged into your machine and wherever you take your USB disk it will have the write and execution protection on.
  • You can choose the application to run at Windows start-up and to apply the settings to current user or to all users.
  • By default none of the protection is on. You have to set your appropriate protection by your own.
My Verdict
The software indeed is very useful. Although the software is only in its infancy, I can confirm that most features are working.
"Executable Deny" in work

"Write Protect" in work
I found a bug in the "About USB Disk Manager" dialogue that incorrectly shows the version number.
No System Requirement is mentioned in the product page. But as mentioned elsewhere it works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP. Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Download
Download the software from its Homepage
http://www.syedgakbar.com/products/usb/download/USBDiskManager.zip
or, using Softpedia Download Links. 
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/USB-Disk-Manager-Download-209540.html

Have a nice day !!

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