Sophos reports 66% of Lost USB Sticks found to carry Malware
Sophos has announced that it is cautioning computer users over the careful use of USB memory sticks, following the results of a Sophos study into the contents of lost drives. Sophos' Australian office conducted the experiment by purchasing a job-lot of found USB sticks from a lost property auction run by major transit authority in Sydney, "RailCorp".
The study 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 & friends and software and web source code.
"It seems that commuters down under are not only losing their USB sticks, and 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 sloppy security. Although this study was done in Sydney, Australia, there is no reason to believe that we wouldn't see a similar story on Delhi or Bangalore Metro and Mumbai's suburban local trains. Folks need to wake up to the threats, and take appropriate preventive steps," said Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant, Sophos.
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