3 responses to “Shift on autologous transfers?”

1. 

   rc primak March 24th, 2009 at 02:40

   “No need to use the shift key if you’re re-inserting a USB drive or SD card that’s never seen another system. If your machine’s clean, the memory will be clean, too.”

   1) Your machine could get infected and infect the Flash Memory device without your knowledge. Then you could be reinfecting your machine, even if an attack was intercepted or treated by your antivirus.

   2) How do you *know* that your machine is absolutely clean? Have you run F-Secure Blacklight recently? Rootkits are very adept at hiding infections.

   Otherwise, I would concur that autologous infection is only a remote concern. Still, how much effort is it to hold down the Shift key?

2. 

   Sethness March 26th, 2009 at 14:37

   I disagree with RC Primak.
   It’s possible that your machine may re-infect itself with a virus, if the mem stick SD card or external hard disk was inserted (& infected) before a virus cure, then re-inserted afterward

3. 

   Sethness March 26th, 2009 at 14:39

   By the way, I must retract what I said earlier about XP-AntiSpy. XP-AntiSpy will prevent autoplayu on CDs and DVDs, but does not prevent the autoplay menu from popping up when you insert a USB memory stick or USB external hard disk.