A computer without a hard drive could be booted with a bootable DVD of a Linux distribution. Unfortunately, the only safe way to view the contents is to use a machine that will not allow the writing of any files to a hard drive. What should you do if you find a USB stick and you want to locate the owner? There is even a smartly priced commercially available version of a USB onto which one can load customized code. The ability to write malware code onto USB sticks is not a new phenomenon, and the “USB drop” technique is used by some security assessment companies to test staff awareness. In the now famous “Stuxnet” case, infected USB sticks were purposely dropped in a parking lot with the hopes that an employee of the nearby factory would plug it into a computer to damage the machinery – this ploy was very successful. Unfortunately, this is a very dangerous method, as USB sticks may contain malware. By contrast, the only way to possibly locate the owner of a found thumb drive is to plug it into a computer and see if there are any clues in its contents, as many folks who carry USB sticks do not encrypt the contents, meaning that the information on those devices is readily accessible. The owner of a lost phone will usually call the phone to see who found it. While it is fairly easy to return a lost phone to its owner, the same is not true with a USB stick. It seems that we are not very good at holding onto our devices.

In total, Consumer Reports indicates that over one million phones were lost in 2013. These reports are consistent with news stories about unusual items left in the back of taxis, including some 190,000 phones that are left in the back of London taxis every year. This is not the first thumb drive I have found, and apparently this is not an unusual event, as some reports indicate that dry cleaners find thousands of them (along with some more unsavory items) each year. I found a USB stick in the street the other day.

How to open a usb flash drive