Lost USB drives full of malware, sensitive documents
In a recent study, Sophos Australia found that 66 percent of lost USB flash drives contain malware applications, as well as personal documents and family vacation photos.
Sophos conducted the study by purchasing a job-lot of found USB sticks from a lost property auction in Sydney.
Analysis of the drives revealed that two-thirds of the 50 tested USB sticks were infected with malware, and contained information about many of the former owners of the devices, their families, friends and colleagues.
Files contained on the unprotected devices included tax documents; school and university assignments; AutoCAD drawings of work projects; photo albums of family and friends; as wells as software and web source code.
Disturbingly, none of the owners had used any sort of encryption to secure their files against unauthorised snoopers.
“It seems that commuters are not only losing their USB sticks, oblivious to the fact that they were carrying malware around in their pockets, but are also at risk of losing their identity and personal information through poor security,” says Brett Myroff, CEO of Sophos distributor, NetXactics.
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