Professor Messer – CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, Certification Training

How can you administratively disable the USB port?

Professor Messer | Dec 11, 2009 | Comments 4

Your organization is concerned about security issues related to USB flash drives. What is the best way to administratively disable the USB ports on a computer?

A) Disable the USB ports in the system BIOS and configure an administrative password

B) Remove the USB drivers from the operating system

C) Add physical USB locks to each USB interface

D) Modify the operating system permissions to prevent access to the USB ports

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Filed Under: CompTIA A+ Pop Quizzes

Tags: interface • security • usb

Tom

What about administering rules via Local Computer Policy?

http://www.ProfessorMesser.com Professor Messer

A local computer policy isn’t a bad idea, but it doesn’t disable the USB port outside of that Windows configuration. I could easily bring a bootable CD or DVD and have full access to the USB port. By disabling the USB port in the BIOS, there’s no possible way to ever use the USB port, regardless of the operating system.

Josh

But it is also fairly simple to reset a bios password. I don’t see how just disabling it in the bios would increase the level of security by a significant degree. Unless you were to physically lock the case to prevent tampering.

http://www.ProfessorMesser.com Professor Messer

In environments where it’s important to disable the USB port, additional physical security is usually taken to ensure that resetting the BIOS is much more difficult than your computer at home.