Analysis of AutoPlay Feature via the USB Flash Drives

USB flash worms represent a persistent threat to the growing Internet in an increasingly networked world. However, their evolution has been somewhat limited and they still rely on the same basic paradigms, which contain fundamental laws. This paper analyzes the Autoplay vulnerability commonly exploited by flash worms to infect removable drives and further applies this analysis to the OpenWith worm found in flash drives. Preventive measures which need to be employed to restrict flash worms and techniques for removing these worms have been discussed in this paper.