Comment by johann8384
5 days ago
From the replies it sounds like it mounted as a storage device and ran autorun. It was super obvious which is what caused them to take notice.
5 days ago
From the replies it sounds like it mounted as a storage device and ran autorun. It was super obvious which is what caused them to take notice.
Autorun has been disabled since the release of Windows 7 in 2009.
For what it's worth, I just checked on my windows 11 install and it was (somewhat) enabled.
Settings -> Bluetooth & Devices -> AutoPlay -> Use AutoPlay for all media and devices
Was set to on, and "Removable drive" was set to "Choose a default", which appears to be equivalent to "Ask me every time".
I don't have anything (that I'm aware of) that auto-runs something, but I presume it will prompt me asking if I want to run setup.exe, which seems somewhat reasonable for new hardware.
And from the malware analysis, https://www.hybrid-analysis.com/sample/e3f57d5ebc882a0a0ca96... , it's signed by "Owner: CN=Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher, O=Microsoft Corporation, L=Redmond, ST=Washington, C=US; Issuer: CN=Microsoft Windows Third Party Component CA 2012, O=Microsoft Corporation, L=Redmond, ST=Washington, C=US" which also looks pretty legit.
I can totally see a lot of folks allowing it to run.
Autoplay is something else. Autorun.inf was a file from the Windows 95 era that could execute an .exe of the publishers choice simply by inserting a usb stick or inserting a CD. It's where the Windows XP era advice to never pick up usb sticks in the parking lot came from. Autoplay is a Windows dialog asking the user what Windows does when media is inserted - automatically import photos, open the folder, etc. It's not capable of running an .exe
3 replies →
> Autorun has been disabled since the release of Windows 7 in 2009.
No. Microsoft just said it will disable it. On some systems, i've seen it disabled (i don't know if by default or by AD policy) but, on the majority of Windows 10, it was not disabled.
By `autorun` we're talking about the notorious pre-2007 function of automatically running an exe — the `open` key in the `autorun.inf` file, specifically. It's ignored in all non-EOL Windows versions. It technically true that features called Autorun and Autoplay are still `enabled`, they just don't do what they did pre-2007. The `icon` key still works, but not `open`. You can re-enable `open` with registry edits, but it's not easy.
Please tell me Windows doesn't STILL autorun off of external drives? I thought that was solved years ago...