Stop serving up pen drives

Feb 12, 2011 - Ankit Fadia

USB Flash Drives or Pen Drives are portable and easy to use storage devices with a capacity as high as 256 GB, where you can store everything from your favourite songs to pictures and even your collection of educational videos (ahem!).

But if you want to keep all of the above away from nosey younger brother check out Truecrypt (www.truecrypt.org/), which allows you to encrypt and secure data.
Similarly, the FreeOTFE (http://www. freeotfe.org/) and Cryptainer (www. cypherix .com/ cryptainerle/) tools are fantastic on the fly encryption tools that will allow you to secure the educational files (ahem!).
But, what if younger brother is smarter than you think and you want to add additional security to stop him? The Rohos Mini Drive will not only encrypt the data, but will also password protect it.
And if you want to completely lock him out, then the best thing to do is disabling the computer’s USB port. Restart and go into BIOS settings (screen that is displayed before Windows boots) and you should find the option inside.
It is also possible to disable and enable USB ports whenever you want, using Windows Registry. Click on START > RUN > Type Regedit and then go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor registry key and on the right-hand side pane double click on START and set the value to 4 to disable the drive and set it to 3 to re-enable. Take that my troublesome brother!

The writer is a 25-year-old Ethical Hacking Expert, a TV show host and the author of 14 best selling books. He can be contacted at ankit@deccanmail.com

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