One concern many people have with the proliferation of USB drives is theft of data from the network. They're relatively undetectable - both while they're on your network and when they're walking out of the building with all your proprietary data.
Here's a couple of tricks to slow down data thieves:
Make all USB drives Read-Only: (requires Windows XP SP2)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control \StorageDevicePolicies\WriteProtect - DWORD=1
Use GPO to disable USB drives: (disables USB drives)
Computer Configuration
Windows Settings
Security Settings
File System
Object name:
%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\usbstor.sys
Replace Existing Permissions
Edit Security
Everyone: Deny
Use GPO to disable USB: (disables -all- USB...)
Save this text as something.adm
;USB Controller Security Template (JM 17/11/04)
#if version <= 2
#endif
#if version >= 3
CLASS MACHINE
CATEGORY !!USBDevices
POLICY !!usbehci
#if version >= 4
EXPLAIN !!Usbdeviceshelp
#endif
KEYNAME "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci"
VALUENAME "Start"
VALUEON NUMERIC 4
VALUEOFF NUMERIC 0
END POLICY
POLICY !!usbhub
#if version >= 4
EXPLAIN !!Usbdeviceshelp2
#endif
KEYNAME "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub"
VALUENAME "Start"
VALUEON NUMERIC 4
VALUEOFF NUMERIC 0
END POLICY
END CATEGORY
[strings]
USBDevices="HBS USB Security Settings"
usbehci="USB Controller Security"
usbhub="USB Root Hub Security"
Usbdeviceshelp ="Contains settings to control the behavior of USB controller. Enabling this setting will disable USB for all users."
Usbdeviceshelp2 ="Contains settings to control the behavior of USB Root Hub. Enabling this setting will disable USB for all users."
