Friday, November 30, 2007

Turn off Autorun - yet another reminder

Tony Bradley makes a great point on the Hack Report site about Autorun. Sure it seems convenient that when you load in a CD, DVD, or USB stick to take some automatic actions. Isn't is great to have the new Springsteen disc start to play once you put it in?

Actually, not so much. If any of that media is malicious, you've got no defense. If you remember back to the original Sony Rootkit issue from a few years back, most folks ended up installing the rootkit because they had Autorun engaged and the software automatically launched when the disc was loaded.

It was my Velvet Revolver disc that infected me. But I'm reasonably technical, so I was able to remove it pretty quickly.

I've already posted about this back in September in Autorun can be hazardous to your health. But I think it's important enough to mention it again.

So do yourself a favor and turn off Autorun. Detailed instructions are in Step 2 of Security Mike's Guide.

No comments: