Lindy’s increased sales of USB Port Blockers

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LINDY Electronics has announced it is seeing a distinct correlation between the sales of its USB port blockers over the last few months and the sales of its floppy drive locks from well over a decade ago. The similarities lead LINDY to conclude that many businesses are becoming increasingly concerned about the growing threat of malware on USB devices.

Sales of floppy drive locks peaked in the mid to late nineties when virus writers switched from floppy disk to email as their preferred infection vector, since then the need to deter users from inserting mobile media into their machines has been negligible.

However, the risk level is changing. For the last few consecutive months security company ESET has placed INF/Autorun, a malware typically found on USB keys that uses the file autorun.inf to compromise a PC, as the number one detected threat from a sample of over ten million systems.

The USB Port Blockers have been a part of LINDY’s product catalogue for sometime, but in the last few months sales have significantly increased.

Looking back at how sales shot up to block floppy drives in the early nineties when viruses were frequently spread using floppy disks, combined with anecdotal evidence from business customers today all points to a heightened risk that organisations are keen to minimise.

“Completely disabling the ports isn’t always a viable option for some companies, so USB port blockers are a cost effective means of mitigating the risk from malware, data theft and installation of unwanted files and programs onto the network,” says Andrew Ingram, Product Manager of LINDY Electronics. “Our USB port blockers are a deterrent to employees and visitors that have access to a company’s computers by serving as a visible reminder that company policy frequently disallows the insertion of unauthorised USB devices.”

The LINDY USB Port Blocker consists of a combined ‘key’ and ‘lock’ assembly, which plugs into the USB port. Blocking the port is simply a matter of plugging the ‘keylock’ into the port and releasing the latch. The key can then be removed leaving the lock in place.