AutoRun malware has been extended to use hard drives,Chinese Trojan on Maxtor HDDs spooks Taiwan, The Register, 12 November 2007 picture frames and other digital devices.Malware hitches a ride on digital devices, The Register, 11 January 2008 Care in dealing with external devices is a security priority. The prevalence of malware infection by means of AutoRun and USB flash drive was documented in a 2011 Microsoft studyMicrosoft Security Intelligence Report Volume 11, January-June, 2011. analyzing data from more than 600 million systems worldwide in the first half of 2011. The study found that 26 percent of all malware infections of Windows system were due to USB flash drives exploiting the AutoRun feature in Microsoft Windows. That finding was in line with other statistics, such as the monthly reporting of most commonly detected malware by antivirus company ESET, which lists abuse of autorun.inf as first among the top ten threats in 2011.Global Threat Report, December 2011.
