Silly FDC and Downadup viruses

[Tefler]

My memory sticks all seem to have the above viruses. The computers are catching them when I put the sticks in, but I'd like to know how to remove the viruses from the memory sticks.

We have Symantec Endpoint Protection as an antivirus on one computer and Avast on the others.

[ChuckFickens]

Format them?

[TTG]

Hold down the shift key and at the same time plug them in. As chuck says, then format them.

[Tefler]

Thanks very much for your answers. It seems a bit drastic to reformat - and to have to copy all the data over to another place. (Will the viruses go with it?) Is there no way of just de-vriusing the sticks?

[ChuckFickens]

Run a full Vires scan on them with Symantec?

[Tefler]

Okey dokey, Chuck. Thanks - yet again - for your help!

[AlBags]

Make sure they are included in the AV protection (settings) .. and not unprotected.

[flobadob]

What does holding shift do when you are putting in the USB stick please, if anything?

[ChuckFickens]

Disables autorun.

Which should be disabled on everything anyhow, from a security point of view. But people don't like having to click on a couple of things to open their memory sticks so everyone leaves it on, just like they don't like having to click to open an email so leave the hugely insecure preview pane on in outlook too.

[AlBags]

Yep ..
Preview panes in email programs!
You'd have thought they would have got rid of them by now .. (especially AVG Free users)

You should be able to check the root of these drives manually for modified entries. It is also possible to lock them down.