A major health organization in North East England, NHS South of Tyne and Wear, has deployed 800 SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise secure flash drives as part of a layered approach to device security.

The organisation has responded to UK Government drives for improved data security in the public sector, and is using FrontRange Solutions’ Device Wall to control the transfer of information to encrypted devices, alongside McAfee endpoint encryption and the SanDisk USB pen drives.

It has replaced 800 flash drives with the encrypted devices and once port control across all endpoints is enabled, staff will only be able to use their authorised, issued drive.

This entry in the TrustedSource blog of SanDisk’s anti-virus partner, McAfee, talks about the continued rise of malware which exploits the Windows AutoRun feature to replicate onto removable media, such as USB thumb drives

Of course, our Cruzer Enterprise flash drives with onboard McAfee antivirus scanning are able to stop this kind of malware spreading.  But the blog entry makes the worthwhile point that other types of portable storage devices are also vulnerable to AutoRun worms, not just pen drives.

mp3 players, digital cameras and even digital picture frames are vulnerable, and what’s more, are just as likely as a thumb drive to be used in multiple machines — helping to spread the worm further. 

The message is, be careful when using any USB device – and keep your antivirus software up to date.