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USBDummyProtect protects USB Drives from viruses by filling up empty space

USBDummyProtect is a small utility that employs a clever trick to prevent spreading of viruses through USB drives. This open source tool creates a dummy file that takes up all free space available on the drive. With every byte of free space gone there is no room for viruses to get into the drive.

Simply copy the executable file of USBDummyProtect to the USB flash drive and run the tool. A dummy.file will be created and the drive will show 0 bytes remaining.

usbdummyprotect usbdummyprotect2

You can now plug this drive on any infected PC and remain safe. This is of course, assuming you need to transfer files from your flash drive to the PC and not the other way around. To remove the dummy.file, simply delete it and the space occupied by the file will be recovered.

If your flash drive is formatted in FAT32 and has more than 4GB of free space, USBDummyProtect wouldn’t work because of the limitation of the FAT specification that prevents creation of file larger than 4GB. So if you have a drive larger than 4GB you should choose NTFS when formatting it.

Also remember to run USBDummyProtect tool on a computer that is free from viruses.

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Comments

  1. DiddlbikerOctober 25, 2010 at 9:42 PM

    Security features are always good and I like the idea. I'm just wondering if it isn't a bit redundant.

    You'd have to remember to use this. When in "remember to use this" mode, why not simply remember to flick the r/w switch on the USB stick to "read only"?

    Most USB sticks that I know of have a "read only" slider, and when security IS such an issue picking a stick that has one seems obvious.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kaushik PatowaryOctober 25, 2010 at 10:57 PM

    Not all USB drives come with write protector, particularly the cheap ones.

    ReplyDelete

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