I have an USB drive which I know is virus infected (an anti-virus on my friend's machine detected it). Unfortunately neither of us know the virus name and I don't want to take the risk of plugging it to my Windows box again.
Of course, in all probability the virus affects only Windows. (But I'm not sure)
I want to know if I can safely plug the USB into my Ubuntu Lucid laptop and copy the stuff I need from the drive. If there are some precautions I need to follow what would they be?
Best Answer
Linux systems usually do not execute code from a USB stick when just connecting it. Thus copying stuff from it should be safe.
Keep in mind that the copied files may contain malicious code. For example, some evil java-script inside a html file or an evil office-script inside you word/open-office-writer documents. That means, you should be careful with these files - don't open these files with programs that are known to execute embedded scripting code.
Well, and don't directly execute binary executables that are copied from that stick.