The Death of Autorun

Last week, Microsoft announced a pretty major change in security policy for windows XP, Vista and the upcoming Version 7 of their operating systems. Ever since the beginning, when you would plug in a device such as an external hard drive or flash drive, the "auto run" dialog box would appear. This box would many times offer you frequently used options for starting your device.

Well, this is all going to change. Starting soon with XP and Vista, Microsoft will be disabling the auto run feature for all devices other than cd-roms. This means that when you plug in a flash drive or hard drive, you will not get your auto run option. I'm sure that for some of you this will seem like a huge pain in the you know where, but there is a method to this madness.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the conficker worm and how it spreads. Conficker and many other worms spread by exploiting the auto run in windows. If you have an infected device and you plug it in, you will be infected because of this exploit. Microsoft decided to disable this option to fight against works such as Conficker.

So keep an eye out for this change. It's coming soon to an OS near you!

Till next time, stay safe out there!

~Gary

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