Firms Face Threat From Self-Activating USB Data Drain

A new breed of USB trojan, which can automatically remove critical data from a PC or network is being exposed today at the IDG Endpoint Security show in London. Slurp.exe 2.0 can copy and remove sensitive information from a network within minutes, by being inserted into a USB port. Centennial Software is warning that a new breed of smart U3 USB devices, which activate viruses of this kind, will pose the biggest threat ever seen to businesses from removable media devices.

Security industry veteran Abe Usher, who has been working with IT security professionals for over ten years to combat emerging threats, created Slurp.exe 2.0, a new version of data theft tool slurp.exe, specifically to run on U3 USB devices. Capable of copying thousands of document files from a computer to a USB drive in less than two minutes, the trojan-style programme from IT consultancy Sharp Ideas demonstrates the data theft threat posed by U3 USB drives. Usher, the founder of Sharp Ideas LLC, has worked with Centennial since using the company’s DeviceWall to test the original version of Slurp.exe launched in February this year. The software defeated the new iteration of the programme, reinforcing the alliance between Centennial and Usher.

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