STRG-1840 - USB storage drivers

This information is provided as part of the Lynis community project. It is related to Lynis control STRG-1840 and should be considered as-is and without guarantees. Any advice and commands should be tested before implementing them in production environments.

Control details
CategoryStorage
Application

Description

Disable drivers like USB storage when not used, to prevent unauthorized storage or data theft

How to solve

Nowadays, most systems have multiple USB ports available. Linux supports USB as well, including a wide variety of hardware devices which can be connected. One of the biggest threats for companies is data theft via USB sticks. They are small while still having a great capacity of data to store.

When a system does not need any USB devices to be plugged in, simply disable USB support from the BIOS of the system. Otherwise determine what kind of devices should be connected. If this is limited to keyboards and mouses, restrict other types of USB devices, like storage devices. On Linux this can be done by blacklisting drivers.

Additional resources

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