Turn off Autoplay to Protect Your System

I recently had to go through another Windows reinstallation here at work. My coworker’s computer had become infected by an infected flash drive. It turns out that his antivirus software hadn’t been updating itself for more than six months, so that was a large part of the problem; but we won’t worry about that right now.

The flash drive had become infected, from what we can deduce, by an infected file he unknowingly copied from a client. When he plugged the flash drive into his laptop, the antivirus didn’t catch the virus (which was developed after the AV software was last updated.)  He didn’t even know the drive was infected until he plugged it into another coworker’s computer, and the antivirus on that machine caught it.  But by then it was too late for the laptop.

This incident raised a serious security issue: Autoplay. When a CD, DVD, or other removable media is inserted into a Windows PC, by default the machine will automatically play it. For example, the music CD will start playing, the movie will begin playing, etc. Windows does this by launching the autoplay.inf file that’s on the removable media. This file tells Windows what file to launch. For a software CD, it will likely be setup.exe

As you can probably guess, this autoplay file is an all-access pass for a virus. So, in order to block this access to your system, it’s very strongly recommended that you turn off the Autoplay feature. This can be done for each drive individually, but it’s quite tedious. And for flash drives and external hard drives, you have to connect the device first.

Here’s a way to turn off Autoplay for all devices at once.

1. Start » Run; enter gpedit.msc
2. Navigate to: Local Computer Policy » Computer Configuration » Administrative Templates » System; double click “Turn off Autoplay” in the right pane of the window.
3. Select “Enabled”
4. In the “Turn off Autoplay on:” pulldown menu, choose “All drives”

That’s it. Now when you connect a flash drive or external hard drive, insert a CD or DVD, you’ll be adding another layer of protection to your system. This should not be your only line of defense, however; you should scan any and all questionable media. At least this way it won’t install itself automatically.

BONUS: You won’t get those annoying popup windows every time, either!

Tagged as: security, Windows