Security Threats and Mitigating Risk for USB Devices

Computer users have consistently sought out improvements to devices for removable storage to provide the quickest and most efficient means of transferring data from one computer to another. Cheap, convenient floppy disks with limited capacity gave way to optical discs, such as rewritable CDs, which significantly improved storage capacity. However, both floppy disks and CDs required the use of a drive in order to read and write to either and incompatibilities with both media were not uncommon. Email evolved as the next method for transfer of small or medium sized files. However, users still found the need for less cumbersome, higher-capacity portable media for the transfer of files. © 2006 IEEE.