this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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If you plug a USB drive into Microsoft Windows, in many cases it will try to do things "for you" with the drive. Not a great idea. There could be malware lurking on that USB drive.

There are a couple of things you can do to help mitigate the issue. These tips assume Windows 11.

Turn off Autoplay

  • Open Settings. Press Windows + I to open the Settings app.
  • Go to Bluetooth & devices. In the left sidebar, click on "Bluetooth & devices."
  • Select Autoplay. Scroll down and click on "Autoplay."
  • Turn Off Autoplay. You'll see a toggle switch labeled "Use Autoplay for all media and devices." Turn this off.

This will turn it off completely. You can, if you want, make individual settings for different types of devices.

Deny Execute Access (Pro or Enterprise versions of Windows 11)

  • Open Group Policy Editor. Press Windows + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.
  • Navigate to the Removable Storage Access Policies. Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Removable Storage Access.
  • Modify Policies. You can enable the policy "Removable Disks: Deny execute access" to prevent execution from removable drives.
  • Apply and Reboot.

Note, there are some cases where you may want to execute scripts or programs from a removable drive. If that's the case, you may not want to do this, or make a note of it so you can re-enable if needed.

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[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 160 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

why the fuck did they re-enable autoplay? it was a terrible idea when they did it years ago and they quickly disabled it.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 74 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

People are becoming even more tech illiterate.

[–] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 80 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's honestly impressive how we went from "only nerds know tech" in gen x to "everyone knows tech" in millennials to "only nerds know tech" in gen z.

[–] ThePantser@lemmy.world 25 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Circle of tech life? It means whatever the next gen is will be tech pros again or maybe amish

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

That implies that boomers knew tech

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago

Lots of boomers had really elaborate stereo systems

[–] ViscloReader@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

They clearly knew and know tech seeing how things are now

[–] femtech@midwest.social 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It was just beginning so they didn't know and didn't need to know. Now tech is everywhere, after them you needed to know to get it to work and it was more widespread. Now it's very widespread but so user-friendly that you don't need to know.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Right, they hadn't even discovered fire yet.

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[–] SatyrSack@feddit.org 3 points 2 weeks ago

Technology is cyclical

[–] bappity@lemmy.world 26 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

on this point...

I heard from someone in my local area that it's getting to the point where people don't even know how to use a mouse and keyboard.

this is the iPad generation....

[–] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 25 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

There's been several articles in the past 10 years pointing out that kids going for IT and CompSci degrees in college/uni are often not aware of file structures. The thought is that they are so used to just saving something on a mobile device, and when they want to use/send/view it, the apps just comb the whole system and present files that fit the required extension formats.

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

I recently had to rescue the SSD of a data science PhD student. While dumping the files, I noticed that he had a dozen copies of identically named large CSV files (I mean 20+ gigabytes each). I compared their checksums - they were copies of the same raw data file, just sitting there in the downloads folder. When I asked, he said he'd made several backups of the project. Including the data.

Unfortunately Windows somehow fucked up the partition table and took the "backups" with it.

[–] TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 weeks ago

He's just following the 3-2-1 backup strategy - at least three copies of the data, two on different formats (.csv and .xls) and at least one copy in a different location (saved in the "Backup" folder instead of the "Documents" folder).

[–] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago

Ffs....what a nightmare!

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 weeks ago

Was a Lab Assistant for the first Programming class for a Comp Sci degree, back in the very early 2010's. Helping some of the students get set up with the IDE was... special.

[–] NemoWuMing@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

I just checked a freshly installed Windows 11 and the autoplay is off by default.

So to follow up on the point you are trying to make: People are illiterate because they react loudly without checking what they react about. It's enough for them to get a few online upvotes in a world where they don't matter otherwise.

[–] Artyom@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

Including the Dev team at Microsoft I guess.

[–] NemoWuMing@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago

I just checked a freshly installed Windows 11 and the autoplay is off by default.

So to follow up on the value of your question: People react loudly without checking what they react about. It's enough for them to get a few online upvotes in a world where they don't matter otherwise.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

Because people in general want things to be 'easy' far more than they they care about security risks they don't understand. If they cared about security at all, they wouldn't be plugging random USB sticks into their computers in the first place.

[–] tomalley8342@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

You are remembering that the executable features of autorun.inf is disabled, which is still true. Autoplay (if enabled) as it exists currently only applies for discovered media file types and makes your default configured media player responsible for handling them. It would not be possible to execute arbitrary tasks unless you had an ACE exploit for the installed media player.

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[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 56 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

Uhhh... Shouldn't you just not plug random shit into your computer?

[–] Boozilla@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago

Think of it as a seatbelt. You don't plan on crashing your car, but shit happens. It's even possible a brand new USB drive from a "reputable" company could have something on it.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago

You forgot the lack of mental capacity in the average windows victim.

[–] Tujio@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

It's surprising how many people will plug in a random USB drive that they find. Apparently that's how the CIA got the Stuxnet virus into Iran's system and nerfed their centrifuges back in the day.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 5 points 2 weeks ago

[rubber duckies intensify]

[–] RustyNova@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Usb killer: you guys do things with the computer?

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[–] deadbeef79000 54 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why the fuck is the non execute setting, a principal safety feature, restricted to the pro and ent versions!?

Fuck you Microsoft.

[–] Boozilla@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

There is also a registry hack for this but I have not looked into it or tested it. (And I agree with your sentiments re: Microsoft.)

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Registry changes are too confusing for normal computer users. The year of the Windows desktop is a pipe dream held dearly by the utterly deranged.

[–] jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.works 51 points 2 weeks ago
[–] jet@hackertalks.com 49 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's even worse than that. If you plug a USB device into a computer, it can pretend to be a keyboard and mouse, and do malicious things that way.

Do not plug any random device into your hardware.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 28 points 2 weeks ago

Yep, plug it into your coworker's computer to test it first.

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Some malicious USB drives have a capacitor that will discharge and fry your whole system. Unless you have an air-gap system that you don't care about, unknown USB drives should be disposed of.

Oh, and all this and more can be accomplished with a sneaky charging cable too. So you have to dial in your level of paranoia to suit your situation. The person most likely to tamper with your computer is a spouse. Search and chat histories as well as GPS devices are becoming common in divorce cases.

[–] ohellidk@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

so one thing that has been driving me nuts is that windows is doing something to my external TB drive to where Ubuntu thinks its corrupt. (I have dual-boot) after googling it, windows sets the drive flag as a "dirty" NTFS system, and Linux no longer reads it afterwards. not sure if there's any solution to fix that, but I'll give these a shot.

[–] tomkatt@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

You can use ntfsfix on the drive to do a check and remove dirty bit. This isn’t a full check though, and could mask or hide actual issues with the drive if it’s failing.

There’s also chkntfs which is more robust but I’m not sure if that’s open source and I’m not familiar with it.

Using ntfsfix is a good quick fix in my experience, but at the end of the day, NTFS is a Microsoft exclusive format and shared disks should be mounted in a format that both OSes can use, like exFAT, or Btrfs with the WinBtrfs driver (the latter I’m not familiar with, I’ve always used exFAT for shared disks, but I don’t use Windows anymore).

[–] symen@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Did you try to disable "Fast Startup" ?

By default, Windows does not do a real shutdown anymore. It closes the user session and hibernates, to speed up the following start up. As a consequence, the Windows partition (and EFI partition ?) are not properly unmounted.

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[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

wasn't autoplay here since like win98 or so though?

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

95, and they disabled it circa Vista because it was obviously a stupid idea.

Ironically, this was originally only for drives that reported themselves as optical media (CD/DVD), but now modern versions of Windows actually won't autoplay an immutable commercially pressed CD, even if it has the correct autoplay.inf file on its root directory structure, but somehow it will autorun things on a flash drive which is a medium explicitly capable of being fucked with by a malicious actor.

Because that makes sense.

It does make sense from the perspective of "destroy the public's perception of 'unsafe' USB storage so that we can push them to use our 'safe' cloud storage (on our terms) instead".

[–] tomalley8342@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That seems to be the opposite of what the others are saying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorun.inf#Inf_handling

Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10

For all drive types, except DRIVE_CDROM, the only keys available in the [autorun] section are label and icon. Any other keys in this section will be ignored. Thus only CD and DVD media types can specify an AutoRun task or affect double-click and right-click behaviour.[9][10]

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Malicious actors are getting USB drives to autorun somehow. If they're not using built in Windows capabilities, they're engaging in shenanigans emulating HID inputs over USB or something.

All I know from personal experience is that modern Windows will not autorun a CD anymore, even though up until XP it would.

[–] JovialSodium@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

An hour old post about Windows on the Fediverse and no one has said use Linux?

Use Linux.

...with usbguard installed and configured with a default-deny policy.

[–] SolOrion@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Personally, I'm using Win10 'til it doesn't get security updates anymore.

Then I'll give Linux a go.

[–] JovialSodium@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

I hope it's a positive experience when you do!

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