Is there a way to protect a USB flash drive from virus?

Question

Level 1

0 points

Is there a way to protect a USB flash drive from virus?

My daughter's school computer lab is seemingly infected with some PC virus but their school IT folks seem to be unable to clean them and with all the young kids using USB flash drives they brought these viruses home when they plug the flash drive into our home computer but luckily since we are using Mac at home and I have ClamXav installed it detected the virus immediately. So we are kind of safe but I am getting tired of removing this same virus every week using UNIX command in a terminal mode, as it's locked and can only removed using the sudo command (taught by some people). My questions are:
1. Is there any way to protect a USB flash drive from virus infection (it's a window PC virus)
2. is there a way or suggestion on how to stop these apart from dis-infecting the whole school computers? The problems are that these young kids are not aware of those viruses in their USB flash drives and their teachers are just too ignorant about it!

Thanks for any suggestions and help

iMac Intel 21.5" 2009, Mac OS X (10.6.2), Flat screen 15" iMac 2002 with 10.4.11

Posted on Jan 8, 2010 6:26 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 8, 2010 8:36 AM in response to Mtse

You're running a Mac so you're already protected. There are no viruses that affect Mac OS.

Reply

Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Jan 8, 2010 11:19 AM in response to Mtse

I'd still invest in your case into Mac protection against passing along malware.

Take a look at Intego AV for one for the Mac and for dual-protection.
http://www.intego.com

Whatever you are finding is 'dormant' I assume, but that doesn't mean it can't become active or passed along either. And there are some 'man in the middle' spyware and malware, some which target online home banking (some people run their home banking from a virtual OS that is used for that purpose only, I always wished Mac OS X could be run in a VM mode as well).

The IT folks sound like they need... do their jobs properly and better.
I don't care how young they are, or the staff's ignorance. Time for education is now.

Download and install Microsoft Security Essentials in Windows and follow guidelines. And there are tons of FAQs, guidelines and articles on the subject.

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/
http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/

Nearly six months after Apple added a malware blocker to Mac OS X (Snow Leopard), the feature appears to be collecting cobwebs.

Apple has not added any anti-malware signature updates to the XProtect.plist file that launched with antidotes for OSX.RSPlug.A and OSX.Iservice, two known Trojan horse programs targeting Mac OS X users.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/index.php?cat=20&submit=view

Reply

Answer 3

Mtse Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 8, 2010 7:45 PM in response to Mtse

Thanks for responding, may be I should be clearer in what I am looking for!

I am not worry about my Macs, as they are well protected with Anti-Virus, Malware and Spyware software. It's more on trying to find a solution to protect the USB flash drive (if any) so as not to bring those viruses home, you never know what they may do to your systems....

So far all the kids USB Flash Drives that they are using for their school projects are all infected with the same virus!

Reply