Something nobody else has mentioned: DISABLE AUTORUN. You don’t need any additional software to do this. Autorun is the main way viruses are transmitted by USB drives. (who thought it’d be a good idea for a computer to run any software without the user asking? Even in Windows 7?)
Ok on Win 7: Go to Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, AutoPlay, uncheck use autoplay.
If she CAN hook it up to the internet, she will.
So you better be sure her laptop has no phone jack or ethernet connection or wifi card, if keeping her off the net is your priority. And there are probably other hardware thingies too that can do the hookup but I’m too out of date to know them.
Does anyone know – is it even possible to buy a laptop that can’t hook up to the internet? There can’t be any significant market for it.
It would have to be a custom built machine, and it would be utterly pointless. No Ethernet port, no USB, no serial, obviously no modem port. It would be the lamest thing known to man, and practically useless. Maybe a bit better than an Apple IIe
So OP – you are just dreaming if you imagine your daughter isn’t going to get online with her computer.
Is there any downside to doing this?
The downside is that people who don’t know much about computer file systems might have some problems finding the right file to execute.
In other words if you disable Autorun and then pop a disc into the optical drive, nothing will happen automatically. You would have to navigate to the install/setup yourself. But its more secure that way.
OK, that sounds like a reasonable trade-off. Thanks a lot. This has all been very helpful.
One more question, if I may. You’ve said that most viruses on flash drives work with autorun. Are there some which don’t and can be embedded in another file?
IOW, the files she would be getting from other kids would be files that those other kids have already used and think are cool/useful/whatever. My question is whether a file that doesn’t merely have an extension of a valid file, but one which actually does contain text/video/graphics and appears on opening to be a perfectly normal functioning file can also contain a virus? (This is probably an ignorant question, but all the examples of sneaky viruses I’ve seen in the media are of files with bogus extensions, not of valid and workable files which also have embedded viruses.)
Certainly a file with an .exe extension can be a virus. Way back when, IIRC, back before the internet, they were about the only type of virus there was, and they often appeared as attachments to emails. The reason to disable autorun is really about avoiding getting your computer infected before your antivirus program has a chance to scan the new disk/drive/files.
On edit – you can open a file manually on a flash drive or some other media, and if a virus is there it will still infect the computer.
I’m not sure you’re addressing my question. Here’s the typical scenario.
Suppose the friend gives her some cool clips of the type that people download from YouTube and similar. And the friend has already seen these clips and besides for the FLV/WMV/similar extensions, they do function as video clips - you get to see the monkey riding on the dog’s back, and so on. Is it possible that in addition to the functioning file there is also a hidden virus embedded in that file?
OK, so that’s the case in which disabling Autorun would not suffice.
Thanks a lot!
My new computer came with something called IOBIT. Anybody familiar with this?
The only way disabling autorun alone will ever work is if you never open the files on the CD or DVD that autorun would have opened automatically. Which means that it works roughly the same as not putting the DC or DVD in the drive at all. In order to ever safely open any files on a suspect CD or DVD, they need to be scanned first with an antivirus program. And the antivirus needs to be frequently updated, which means frequent connection to the internet.
My antivirus software updates its antivirus database almost every day.
I’ve been using the free version of Advanced System Care from IOBIT, and just started playing with the free version of their malware fighter. Neither would make my short list of must haves, but I find the former to be decent at removing a small amount of clutter and various other semi-helpful things on Mom’s PC.
Mine checks for updates every 8 hours, or more often if I wanted to get Howard Hughes level paranoid. I have it scan nightly too. I can’t remember the last virus I got, and I tend to play pretty fast and loose with various “media” downloads. I almost like getting a virus, cause then I get to kick it’s ass, and it’s sometimes a fun challenge.
As people have said, disabling autorun won’t protect you from running the file yourself, or viruses hidden in some types of files. But leaving it on means you’re sure to run any such virus (if you don’t have other protection), and autorun isn’t that useful (especially with a USB drive, how does it know what you want to run?)
Another tip I remembered is to disable “hide extensions for known file types”, which prevents files like document.doc.exe from being mistaken as .doc files.