Scenario
You're on your way back from lunch and you find a flash drive on the floor next to Bob's desk. You're not sure who it belongs to, so you...
Choose one of the following...
Bob finds the flash drive...
You throw the flash drive in a garbage can next to Bob's desk. Thirty minutes later, Bob sees it and assumes it's meant for him.
"Hmmm...how did this get in there?"
Bob takes the flash drive out and plugs it in. While it seems like a harmless flash drive, it was actually placed there maliciously.
You get an email from IT––"Everyone log off the network. We have a situation."
Try again and see if you can get a better outcome.
You install a virus
While it seems like a harmless flash drive, it was actually placed there maliciously. You plug it into your computer, don't see anything interesting, so you eject it and throw it away.
Thirty minutes later, you get an email from IT – "You've got a virus on your computer and it's going after the network. Please shut your computer down."
Try again and see if you can get a better outcome.
Bob finds the flash drive...
You leave the flash drive on the ground, assuming it's Bob's (since it's next to Bob's desk). Thirty minutes later, Bob sees it and assumes it's his.
Bob takes the flash drive out and plugs it in. While it seems like a harmless flash drive, it was actually placed there maliciously.
You get an email from IT––"Everyone log off the network. We have a situation."
Try again and see if you can get a better outcome.
Bob finds the flash drive...
You want to be helpful, so you put the flash drive on Bob's desk, assuming it's Bob's.
Thirty minutes later, Bob sees it and assumes it's meant for him.
"Ah, this must be from Jill in Accounting. She said she had something to drop off."
Bob takes the flash drive out and plugs it in. While it seems like a harmless flash drive, it was actually placed there maliciously.
You get an email from IT––"Everyone log off the network. We have a situation."
Try again and see if you can get a better outcome.
Tim discovers it's a malicious flash drive
While it seems like a harmless flash drive, you weren't sure. So you took it to Tim in IT.
"Hey! I found this on the ground and wasn't sure who it belonged to. I figured you could check it out to see what's on it."
Tim checks it out on a virtual machine and discovers that it was a malicious attempt to install a virus on the network.
"Wow! I'm glad you brought this to me! That could have been really bad if somebody plugged this in."
Nice! Because you went the extra mile, you protected your workplace from a potentially disruptive virus.