ESET identifies increase in USB malware

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According to security firm, ESET, over 10 percent of all malware detected in March 2008, was designed to utilise portable storage media, including USB sticks, as an attack and spread vector.

The removable media was infected with malware which ran automatically when the drive was inserted into a computer.

This INF/Autorun malware, which tries to use the autorun.inf file as a way of compromising a PC, remained the most common type of malware, and increased its share of detected malware during March.

The use of portable storage media as an infection vector started to increase last summer, and the problem has continued to grow since then.

Although computer users are tuned in to the possible of infection via emails, desktop protection is often neglected.