USB sticks are very useful, and these days you can hardly find a serious computer user that is not using them. You can see clearly, why is that so. The USB flash memory brought us many useful things with its appearance, such as easy information transfer from one computer to another and besides that, each of those hardware pieces fits into a trousers pocket. However, there are situations when USB can represent a certain threat to you. For example, if your computer (or your complete informatics system) is directly exposed to multiple users, and you do not wish the other person to be able to transfer all sort of information in or out of the computer. This could easily be a realistic scenario in one of the big companies, where many users have the access to network discs where the confidential information is stored, so any unauthorized export of information could result in major loss for the company itself.

If we like to make the USB drivers unloaded during the system startup we can always shut down the USB completely, in which case our USB mouse, keyboard or printer will not work either. In order to disable the “trespassers” to insert their USB stick into a computer and copying the information, we need to do the following:

1. Type regedit in Run to approach the registry editor and press Enter.
2. In registry editor reach the key:
   

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ UsbStor

3. Change the Start value to 4 to switch off the USB storage devices. Change the value back to 3 if you want to switch it on later again.

Tags | Howto, Security, Storage, Tips and Tricks, Windows