Need to constantly put pen drives in public computers? Do you need to transfer a lot of stuff from your friend’s PC? Have you been running Anti-Virus scans every time before inserting a pen drive? Are you skeptical of using your pen drives on public computers? Do you hesitate to lend your pen drives to your friends? Do you fear your PC getting infected of viruses through pen drives? Are you? Do you? Tension not!
Well, sorry for that Home Shoppe 18 plug 
Here are 2 small utilities that shall help you overcome one of the most common method for spreading viruses via pen drives ie. Autorun.
1. Autorun Eater:
Autorun Eater was born due to increase of malwares using the ‘autorun.inf’ tactic to infect users unknowingly be it from flash drives, removable hard disks or any other removable storage device. When an infected device is infected with a malware and an ‘autorun.inf’ file is dropped, the shell menu is normally modified to execute the malware whenever the unsuspecting user double-clicks the infected drive.
Features:
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Scan and remove suspicious autorun.inf files found in the root directory of all drives, C-Z, in real-time
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Add and remove from startup entry
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3 optional registry fixes (Task Manager, Regedit & Folder options).
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Users are informed whenever a suspicious “autorun.inf” file is detected.
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Backup copies of suspicious “autorun.inf” file(s) are created before the original copy is removed for easy recovery.
2. Panda USB & Autorun Vaccine:
- Computer Vaccination
The free Panda USB Vaccine allows users to vaccinate their PCs in order to disable AutoRun completely so that no program from any USB/CD/DVD drive can auto-execute.
- USB Vaccination
USB Vaccine can be used on individual USB drives to disable its AUTORUN.INF file to prevent malware infections from spreading automatically. When applied on a USB drive, the vaccine permanently blocks an innocuous AUTORUN.INF file, preventing it from being read, created, deleted or modified.
~Enjoy!
EDIT: As mentioned by Debsuvra, if you’re on Vista/7 keep Defender & UAC on & you might not be infected.
March 15th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I would like to recommend another way to ‘fight pen drive virus attack’.
Just install Vista or better OS (Windows 7) from Microsoft and don’t disable UAC. When one plugs in a infected pen drive, UAC will automagically prompt that some bitchy tiny malware is trying to get access to run on user PC. Just click cancel and you’re safe.
Isn’t that simple?
March 15th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Well that is for infection. You cannot clean the drive unless you go and do it manually. But to clean the autorun file Panda helps. I hope that clears the conversation you had with me.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
A bare minimum (especially if you do not want to install a new antivirus or a piece of software) should be to disable autorun on your computer entirely. You’ll need to dig around in your Control Panel to figure out how to do that on your specific system. Do note that this shouldn’t preclude you from having an antivirus- just a piece of advice in case you’re like me and don’t like extra software.
March 17th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Why not disable Autorun for Flash drives only ? http://sathyabh.at/2008/05/04/enabledisable-autoplay-for-individual-drives/
March 17th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Can do that too.
UAC/Disable autorun will work too. But these utilities take care of “if infected” scenario too. I particularly love the built-in registry fixes for Folder Options & Task Manager in Autorun Eater & the vaccinate options.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Create a blank file named autorun.inf and store it permanently in USB drive with selecting read-only attributes.
March 19th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
That’s kinda not worked in the past for me, I usually have autorun files in my portable drives for icons. The infections overwrite the content always.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Hello Guys,
I have also posted one Article on “How to Remove autorun.inf” Virus from pen Drives.. You can check out at here: http://www.rajeshpatel.net/remove-autoruninf-virus-from-pendrive-esily-without-antivirus/
April 13th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
^^ Does not work always & is not a recommended method simply because viruses over-write the aturun file.