I was recently told of a story of an incident that happened a few weeks ago. However, this is not the first time I have heard the tale. An employee is walking through the parking lot and finds a USB stick on the ground. Fearful that it might be important information of a colleague, the employee picks up the stick and takes it back to his office. To determine who is the owner, the employee inserts the drive into his computer and opens up the folders thinking that its contents will identify the owner.

WAM – the entire company’s network is infected with a new virus that the anti-virus program did not recognize.

The dropping of virus seeds in the way of USB drives is a very common attack. Drives are left in corporate lobbies, doctor’s offices, parking lots, restaurants, any place where people gather. The thieves are counting on Good Samaritans to help their follow man or woman.

Employers need to inform their employees of the following procedures:

1. If they find a USB drive never have them put it into their computer

2. They should give the drive to IT to determine what they want to do with it.

3. If there is no IT dept either drob the drive into the garbage or first smash it with a hammer before dropping it into the garbage.

4. Don’t worry that someone will loose important data. They probably have backup and if they don’t they soon will; and if there was confidential data on the device you just saved the company’s customers from a data breach.