Some may not believe it, but one of the main causes of computer problems comes from virus infections carried on the USB sticks of friends or colleagues. It is not that these people want to bring viruses to our computer but, as also happens via Email, if their computer has a virus and it is transmitted to their USB stick, when they insert it in other computers, they also infect these.
Those who use the laptop in shared places and have working relationships with many people can defend their system from infections by blocking the USB ports .
In another article I had written about how to enable or disable USB ports but I admit that this solution is far too drastic.
An effective defense is to disable the autorun of USB sticks in order to prevent a virus from being run automatically.
Another more customizable and less limiting solution is instead to block the USB ports by giving specific authorizations for each device that is connected .
With the USB Waecher program (German software, free, for Windows) a list of USB devices that can be used on the computer is configured so all other pens, sticks and other USB devices will be ignored until authorized.
Unfortunately this program displays some information in German and nothing is understood however it is very simple and intuitive to use.
Meanwhile, after installation, a new service called USB Wathcer is created and started, which acts in the background.
From the administration interface, the most important menu is on the left side and is called Erlaubte Geräte where permissions for USB devices are assigned .
In this section you can find the list of USB sticks, mobile phones, cameras, printers etc .. authorized to connect to the PC .
All the devices connected before and during the installation of the program are automatically added to the white list.
If you notice devices that are no longer used (old cell phones or USB sticks) you can remove them from the whitelist by right-clicking and deleting them.
From this moment, when you connect a new USB stick or other, it is not recognized by the computer until you authorize it.
By clicking on the + button, you can add a new device and authorize it to be connected to the computer (you can also right-click on the Erlaubte Geräte menu and select hinzufügen Gerät which means add).
The wizard for authorizing a device is in German but just select the element found and connected to the computer, click on Weiter (next) and, at the end, give the ok with the Fertig key.
If you want to disable this check without uninstalling the program, you have to go to Start -> Run, write " services.msc " and stop the USB Watcher service and set it to start manually.
To uninstall USB Watcher, go to the Windows Add / Remove Programs utility instead.
