Write Protect USB

Write-Protect USB Drive

 Write protect USB flash drive in order to protect it from viruses and other malware programs.Because USB drives are widely used to move data between computers, these drives are the target for attackers to transfer virus etc from one computer to other. Data insideUSB can easily be modified or deleted by malware programs. To write protect it, follow these steps:

 Step 1: Open the Registry Editor by opening the “Run” dialog box, type regedit and hit “Enter”).

 Step 2.Go to Registry key:

  Step3: Right-click on Control, click on New->Key and name it as StorageDevicePolicies. Now a New Key named as StorageDevicePolicies is created.

 Step 4. Right-click on StorageDevicePolicies and create a New->DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it as WriteProtect.

 Step 5: By double clicking on WriteProtect, set value 1 from 0. 

Now the right-protection for USB drives is enabled on your computer thus it would not be possible for anyone or any program to add/delete the contents from your USB flash drive. Any attempt to copy or download the files onto the USB drive will result following error message:

"Remove the Write Protection or Use another Disk" 

Action to Revert Back

To revert and remove the write-protection, all you need to do is just change the Value data for WriteProtect (Step-5) from 1 back to 0. Now write access to all the USB devices is re-enabled.

I am no expert, but experience taught me that switching off can restore your confidence. Thanks to Priyanka for sharing technology application to prevent malware or viruses.

But such registry change can be implemented only on a particular computer, if the usb drive is used at many systems, then what. For example sharing of usb drive between home and office systems. Also usually you cannot change registry at office system without permission. So what I found useful is to use virtual machine to check usb drive contents. I run linux inside vmware or virtualbox and check for usb drive contents, if any malware files are detected, they can be deleted.