USB flash drive infected

[Hardik]

Hello,
I just did a scan on a USB stick and I came to realize that it was infected with the virus VBS: Malware-gen. The autorun.inf file is also infected. I would like to know how to completely get rid of this virus without deleting the file in it, as the data in this usb stick are very important and I have not made a backup of it as well. So please provide me nice solution. Thank you

[Techguru01]

Go to Start\Run and type cmd to run the Command Prompt:
In the Command Window, type in your flash drive’s drive letter (if your pen drive is detected as G, then type G: and so on). Once you have gone in to your pen drive, now type dir/w/o/a/p and hit Enter. You will then see a list of files. Search whether any of these files appear or exist:
1. Autorun.inf
2. New Folder.exe
3. Bha.vbs
4. Iexplore.vbs
5. Info.exe
6. New_Folder.exe
7. Ravmon.exe
8. RVHost.exe or any other files with “.exe” extension.
For instance, two files are found in the following example: a.dll.vbs and Autorun.inf.
If you happen to see any of the above files, just type and run the command attrib -h -r -s -a *.*
Once this has been done, you need to delete the files that you see. In the example above, you need to delete the a.dll.vbs and Autorun.inf. Just type in “del autorun.inf” and “del a.dll.vbs”.
It’s almost done. To double ensure your pen drive is safe, perhaps you might need to scan your USB flash drive again with some reputable antivirus software. You can eject your pen drive and reinsert for using.

[SpearMan]

Flash drive infections usually involve malware that loads an autorun.inf file into the root folder of all drives (internal, external, removable). When the removable media is inserted, autorun looks for autorun.inf and automatically executes another malicious file to run on your computer. When a flash drive becomes infected, the Trojan will infect a system when the removable media is inserted if autorun has not been disabled.

Please insert your flash drive. Hold down the Shift key when inserting the drive until Windows detects it to bypass the autorun feature and keep autorun.inf from executing automatically.

Please download Flash_Disinfector.exe by sUBs and save it to your desktop.

• Double-click Flash_Disinfector.exe to run it and follow any prompts that may appear.
• The utility may ask you to insert your flash drive and/or other removable drives. Please do so and allow the utility to clean up those drives as well.
• Wait until it has finished scanning and then exit the program.
• Reboot your computer when done.

Note: Flash_Disinfector will create a hidden folder named autorun.inf in each partition and every USB drive that is plugged in when you ran it. Don't delete this folder...it will help protect your drives from future infection.

Keeping Autorun enabled on USB and other removable drives has become a significant security risk due to the increasing number of malware variants that can infect them and transfer the infection to your computer.

[techman]

Most of these infections are due to autorun being active on the PC that you are plugging your flash drive into. So the best, first step is to always turn off autorun (I also turn off autoplay because that got many users in trouble a while back with the Sony CD rootkit.) This prevents an infection from moving from a flash drive to a PC.

Second, based on a method/post by Bill Castner (who posts at several forums around the web), I now create a folder in the root folder of all my USB flash drives named autorun.inf
I then change the attributes of the folder to Archive, Hidden, System and Read Only.
This has the effect of preventing a virus from creating an autorun.inf file, which is the main method of spreading USB based infections (because autorun is normally on in Windows and it executes autorun.inf files.) (A virus may still copy itself to the flash drive but without an autorun.inf file, it will not execute and spread.)

If you follow these 2 things, you should remain safe. (The first helps to keep the PC clean and the second helps keep the USB drive clean.)

There is still the caveat of using a USB flash drive that must have an autorun.inf file, U3 being one example. In this case, you MUST be sure autorun is OFF to prevent the spread of any problems.

Hope this helps!

[kolatski18]

Originally Posted by techguru01

Go to Start\Run and type cmd to run the Command Prompt:
In the Command Window, type in your flash drive’s drive letter (if your pen drive is detected as G, then type G: and so on). Once you have gone in to your pen drive, now type dir/w/o/a/p and hit Enter. You will then see a list of files. Search whether any of these files appear or exist:
1. Autorun.inf
2. New Folder.exe
3. Bha.vbs
4. Iexplore.vbs
5. Info.exe
6. New_Folder.exe
7. Ravmon.exe
8. RVHost.exe or any other files with “.exe” extension.
For instance, two files are found in the following example: a.dll.vbs and Autorun.inf.
If you happen to see any of the above files, just type and run the command attrib -h -r -s -a *.*
Once this has been done, you need to delete the files that you see. In the example above, you need to delete the a.dll.vbs and Autorun.inf. Just type in “del autorun.inf” and “del a.dll.vbs”.
It’s almost done. To double ensure your pen drive is safe, perhaps you might need to scan your USB flash drive again with some reputable antivirus software. You can eject your pen drive and reinsert for using.

.............okay i am having trouble with this, i have a flash drive named D KOlATSKI , and there are many folders on it containing all my school files like autocad and word documents. there are folders and sub folders on the drive. i have tried eveything to fix this problem and ended up with 4 folders viable named found.000 found.001 found.002 found.003... and they have 9999 files in them, stating from file000.CHK- file9999.CHK.. and they dont open and i still cant find my work. i tried this and i dont get any of those folders.. just the ones that say found.000-.004 show up, i dont know what to do and need this work, its very important to me please help me

A USB flash drive consists of flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB 1.1 or 2.0 interface. USB flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, much smaller than a floppy disk, and most weigh less than 30 g. USB flash drives are often used for the same purposes as floppy disks were.