Post date: Feb 11, 2011 4:34:19 AM
One of the major problems with sharing flash drives is that there is a risk that you can encounter viruses that can corrupt your files OR infect you computer with viruses. Having an antivirus helps, BUT there are custom made viruses out there that are not easily detected, OR not detected at all... One common feature of custom made viruses is that masquerade themselves as Ms Office files (DOC, XLS, PPT), videos (AVI, Xvid, MKV, 3GP) or audio (MP3, MP4) AND/OR using provocative names (s*x video, scandal, payslip, etc) to entice the user to open it.
The easiest precaution is to scan your flash drive (or any storage media) using an updated anti virus. BUT what if dont have your computer with you? Or your antivirus is not updated?
Android comes to save the day!
By using an OTG cable, you can connect your flash drive to your Android and access its contents. You can copy/move/delete files to/from the flash drive. We will use this feature to find viruses (or any other files you want to delete).
1. Connect a flash drive to your Android device using an OTG cable (available online for 2$ or less.
2. Open your favorite file manager (i personally use ES File Explorer)
3. Use the search function of the file manager to look for the following file types :
WHY the *.*.exe? Because lots of viruses uses that format, for example :
My diary.doc.exe
Since most Windows PC hides the extension by default, the .exe part will be hidden. And general PC users can identify .doc as MS Word document. Viruses can also use a MS OFFICE icon, and some uses the default FOLDER icon!
*.exe is subjective because it can be a legit program, like a game or installer. So delete with caution.
The good thing with this exercise is, your ANDROID is safe from getting infected. Since a virus written for Windows PCs can only infect PCs, so a PC virus is totally inert when opened/checked in an Android system.