Can puppy protect me from malware?

madgorilla

New Member
Thread author
Feb 16, 2015
7
Hi. I am rather a person with basic knowledge about computers so don’t be surprised if my question will sound stupid to you.
I have a Windows PC and I often use my thumb drive to print some documents in my university. I’m afraid that it will become infected someday so I thought it would be a good idea to use it only with Puppy Linux when I'm at home. This is why I made my thumb drive a bootable one with Puppy on board. What I want to do is to boot to Puppy, copy the files I need to print or use at the university to the USB drive, then close the system and disconnect the USB drive. To be clear, only one USB stick is involved in this process (Puppy and data are on the same USB stick). Would that prevent infecting my Windows PC? If not then how can I avoid viruses spreading through USB? Can malware do any harm to Windows OS when Puppy is booting?
 

BoraMurdar

Community Manager
Verified
Staff Member
Well-known
Aug 30, 2012
6,598
Well if you are connecting your USB drive to an infected machine running Windows, some viruses may enter and infect your USB drive. When you connect that USB drive to your home machine (without proper security) it may infect your machine also. But of course if you make a mistake and boot into Windows instead of Puppy Linux.
Anyway, you can immunize your USB drive with some tools (do it after you install puppy on the USB, check if boot files are not corrupted by immunization)
http://labs.bitdefender.com/projects/usb-immunizer/overview/
http://www.pandasecurity.com/usa/homeusers/downloads/usbvaccine/
 

madgorilla

New Member
Thread author
Feb 16, 2015
7
Thanks for your quick reply. It's good to hear that using Puppy is enough to prevent infections.
But is it really a necessary to use those vaccines? I thought that disabling Autorun/Autoplay in Windows serves the same purpose.
 

BoraMurdar

Community Manager
Verified
Staff Member
Well-known
Aug 30, 2012
6,598
Thanks for your quick reply. It's good to hear that using Puppy is enough to prevent infections.
But is it really a necessary to use those vaccines? I thought that disabling Autorun/Autoplay in Windows serves the same purpose.
Well, it can protect your computer if you've disabled any autorun instances. But this way you can immunize your USB drive to stop spreading autorun viruses across other computers also (it replaces the original autorun.inf file with it's own/ undeletable one).
Of course, if you're using your USB drive only for those purposes you mentioned, then it's not needed to ;)
 
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madgorilla

New Member
Thread author
Feb 16, 2015
7
I don't want to spread viruses but I use this particular USB drive only for the mentioned purpose so I think I'll just scan it with ClamAV from time to time. Anyway, thanks again :)
 
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BoraMurdar

Community Manager
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Staff Member
Well-known
Aug 30, 2012
6,598
I don't want to spread viruses but I use this particular USB drive only for the mentioned purpose so I think I'll just scan it with ClamAV from time to time. Anyway, thanks again :)
You're welcome.
Just use some other AV with better detection rate than ClamAV, or better response on the new threats. Alternatively you can use Emsisoft Emergency Kit as portable tool to scan your USB Flash Drive.
Stay safe :)
 
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jamescv7

Level 85
Verified
Honorary Member
Mar 15, 2011
13,070
In my experience of using Puppy Linux before, I've tried to attach autorun attacks on USB to insert in that OS and remove them manually cause due to the fact its a different environment and only run through PE (portable execution) so no effect of any replication cause a delete will finish it. :)

To prevent any attacks immunization is one been mentioned followed by adding USB realtime protection for Windows in case of any untoward attack.
 

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