USB stick infected?

Hello ten community,

When i connected my USB stick on PC ( windows LTSC v.1809) got such weird folders.

please see attached screenshot.

I had it formatted before and nowhere connected till today.

whats that?

p.s. is any solutions to avoid PC infections from USB? when i connect USB stick i have always pressed on shift button and after will connect a sticks.
how is possible clean USB from virus by CMD without losing data inside?

sometimes i got a USB sticks from user's with shortcut inside and all data is hiden or something like it.

thanks for ur time.

I think it was file system error.

after i format it and works now fine but what was it can not guess.

what about this :

how is possible clean USB from virus by CMD without losing data inside?

sometimes i got a USB sticks from user's with shortcut inside and all data is hiden or something like it.

Jacee said:

Download Panda USB Download Panda USB Vaccine

does it bootable media ? if i connect such usb will it distroies?

Your USB drive looks encrypted to me. If you didn't do this then you've probably been a victim of some form of ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks work by forcing the encryption of certain files the malware wants to target, usually ones that have the most value, and then extort the victim into paying to have the contents decrypted. In other cases it may just be someone messing around who wanted to cause you stress and anxiety by simply encrypting your drive so you can no longer use it. What you are looking at there is likely your files in encrypted form.

Also, why are you running USB's given to you? You should NEVER trust a USB stick that you yourself have not before had posession of and/or bought brand new and can vouch for the original condition it was in. Just plugging in USB sticks is really really REALLY bad practice. You're asking for trouble. You should never do it. USB drives are among the MOST common form of medium to launch malware attacks from because they can be customized to a high degree in order to do the bidding of the bad guy and also because most computers by default accept and even auto-run USB sticks. This means as soon as it is plugged in often Windows will automatically open and/or run the autoplay script on the stick which then starts the process of hacking the target computer. USB sticks are also frequently used in what are called 'bad USB' attacks whereby the USB pretends to be a trusted device a computer automatically allows to run on the computer without question.

They are frequently used to hack computers and here you are using them without questioning it. Look at these storage devices like you look at diseases. Are you spreading a disease by using it? Is the storage device clean? How do you know? Who has it come from? Do you trust them? Always suspect the worst when using someone else's USB stick. I would potentially run it in a virtual machine environment alongside HiJackThis or some reasonable tool for analysing running processes. You'll likely see a whole array of processes start followed by changes to the drive and/or the computer running the USB stick. At least in a virtual machine environment the changes are reversible and/or insignificant. If you see activity on your network after running the USB stick you know it's been compromised. Setup a decent firewall to notify you of all connections and then see what happens.

Either way you should NEVER use someone else's USB stick without knowing to a very high degree the stick you're using is not infected. Because the amount of infections that occur with USB sticks is very high and like mentioned above, is one of the most common attack vectors because you're often overriding security practices and/or basic protections by connecting the USB stick physically to the computer where it is the most vulnerable. Physical attacks are by the hardest to prevent.

Just be way more careful next time and make sure you don't go doing this sort of stuff at work and/or anywhere else otherwise you could be the guy who helps to cause a sh*t storm.

supermammalego said:

Your USB drive looks encrypted to me. If you didn't do this then you've probably been a victim of some form of ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks work by forcing the encryption of certain files the malware wants to target, usually ones that have the most value, and then extort the victim into paying to have the contents decrypted. In other cases it may just be someone messing around who wanted to cause you stress and anxiety by simply encrypting your drive so you can no longer use it. What you are looking at there is likely your files in encrypted form.

Also, why are you running USB's given to you? You should NEVER trust a USB stick that you yourself have not before had posession of and/or bought brand new and can vouch for the original condition it was in. Just plugging in USB sticks is really really REALLY bad practice. You're asking for trouble. You should never do it. USB drives are among the MOST common form of medium to launch malware attacks from because they can be customized to a high degree in order to do the bidding of the bad guy and also because most computers by default accept and even auto-run USB sticks. This means as soon as it is plugged in often Windows will automatically open and/or run the autoplay script on the stick which then starts the process of hacking the target computer. USB sticks are also frequently used in what are called 'bad USB' attacks whereby the USB pretends to be a trusted device a computer automatically allows to run on the computer without question.

They are frequently used to hack computers and here you are using them without questioning it. Look at these storage devices like you look at diseases. Are you spreading a disease by using it? Is the storage device clean? How do you know? Who has it come from? Do you trust them? Always suspect the worst when using someone else's USB stick. I would potentially run it in a virtual machine environment alongside HiJackThis or some reasonable tool for analysing running processes. You'll likely see a whole array of processes start followed by changes to the drive and/or the computer running the USB stick. At least in a virtual machine environment the changes are reversible and/or insignificant. If you see activity on your network after running the USB stick you know it's been compromised. Setup a decent firewall to notify you of all connections and then see what happens.

Either way you should NEVER use someone else's USB stick without knowing to a very high degree the stick you're using is not infected. Because the amount of infections that occur with USB sticks is very high and like mentioned above, is one of the most common attack vectors because you're often overriding security practices and/or basic protections by connecting the USB stick physically to the computer where it is the most vulnerable. Physical attacks are by the hardest to prevent.

Just be way more careful next time and make sure you don't go doing this sort of stuff at work and/or anywhere else otherwise you could be the guy who helps to cause a sh*t storm.

Thanks for your such informative suggestions.

i will be more careful about such sticks. i never connect others stick to my PC.

what should i do now to be clear that my PC is not effected?

how to see activite on my network?

p.s. i will run windows on VM and will check stick on there right?

Use decent antivirus, firewall and antimalware. See if they can pick anything up. It's harder to find things once you have infected your computer as they now have access to the very thing you rely on to root the bad things out. You know that once you get a virus in real life your body weakens and it cannot rid the virus magically without ridding the body with it. And so much like that it becomes a case of waiting it out, running scans, checking your firewall logs, increasing the alert level for your firewall so you are notified more often about connections. You can use something like Glasswire to monitor your network activity.

And yeah, if you want to be safer you can run USB sticks and everything else you may have concerns about in a virtual machine environment, or on an old computer you don't care about that isn't connected to a network, or a sandbox program like Sandboxie.