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Many people out there have mistakenly think that 'autorun.inf' file is a virus. Autorun.inf while is not a virus, it is always better to make sure that it will not do anything stupid.
autorun used to be a very useful function and also easy to make believe that everything is running 'normally'.
As I've mentioned a little about autorun.inf in "How to protect your computer from being invaded. Part2", I'm going to add a little about it here. 'Autorun.inf' not only runs when you access it. It also changes the way the
folder should be accessed prior to any access. Rest assured that although it may sound dangerous, as long as you DISABLE autoruns, you'll be safe. If you've plucked in your USB drive into other computer, DO NOT double-click to access it. Always right-click. Forgive me for not being sensitive. If you handle your mouse with your left hand, 'right-click'ing means 'left-clik'ing. Same goes to CDs/DVDs/Zip disk/MO disk. They may contain 'autorun.inf' which may cause undesired operations. When you right-clicked and still encounter some weird actions other than those common 'open', 'explore', 'search' or 'scan with whatever anti-virus', don't panic. I had this experience when browsing for games in a pc store when a man came in and complained 'My son bought this CD from your store and the anti-virus alerted him of potential
virus threat.'. I turned around and read the label which says, if I remembered correctly, 'Hackers' handbook'. Know what is the content or at least expect something that is as 'harmful' as what you were trying to get. Start by 'explore' another drive, and from there, choose the desired drive or folder and
explore it. Save whatever files you feel is safe, extract them out and you're safe to go.
I've mentioned it in Part 3 which covers a little registry, that 'autorun.inf' is, if altered by the virus, the nearest 'phone' that will 'call' the virus whenever the folder (containing that particular autorun.inf) is accessed. Which means that when you double-clicked that folder, everything* listed in the 'autorun.inf' will be activated. If it so happens that it has a line which links to 'anyvirus.exe', that virus file will be accessed without you realising it.
* Everything does NOT include the line calling for
icon which looks like this:
icon=icon name.ico
Why? It doesn't need you to click it to replace the folder icon with the icon set above. In other words, it is runned without your click.
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