The Center of Excellence in Information Assurance (COEIA) - King Saud University (KSU) issued warnings about some viruses that exploit the “AUTORUN” feature of storage devices such as USB, Memory Cards, and CD/DVD once they are attached to the computer. The operating system immediately executes these malwares without permission from the users. This type of viruses is named AUTORUN VIRUSES.

CoEIA called for deactivating the “AUTORUN” feature in the users’ computers to be activated only when it is required since this is the best method to avoid the threat of "AUTORUN" viruses. Moreover, CoEIA provides a software program to disable this feature. The software can be freely downloaded from CoEIA website www.coeia.edu.sa
Recently, CoEIA conducted a practical study to measure the risk of "AUTORUN" viruses and specify the countermeasures against them. The study mentioned that "AUTORUN" viruses are launched once the storage discs are attached to the computer causing system crashes, data erasing, data modification, or even they might steal the data storing them in another location. The study also explains that providing protection against "AUTORUN” viruses is somehow difficult due to the spread of removable storage discs and the easiness of producing such viruses besides the antivirus software may fail to discover them.