1-in-4 worms spread through infected USB devices
Hard on the heels of a report that a USB drive was used to compromise US military networks in 2008, a security company today claimed that 25% of all new worms are designed to spread through the portable storage devices.
"Much of the malware in circulation has been designed to distribute through these devices," said Luis Corrons, the technical director of PandaLabs, the research arm of Panda Security, in a statement yesterday. "Not only does it copy itself to these gadgets, but it also runs automatically when a USB device is connected to a computer, infecting the system practically transparently to the user."
While a quarter of all 2010's worms rely on USB devices to spread to other PCs, a recent Panda survey of more than 10,000 small- and medium-sized firms found that 27% of those victimised by a malware infection in the last year reported that the attack had originated with infected USB hardware, primarily flash drives.
