How to lock and unlock your USB ports

External flash and USB hard drives can be used to deliver malware or steal sensitive files. Want to protect the USB ports of your laptop from unauthorized access? Is there any software that can be used to lock the USB ports with a password and then unlock them when needed?

Here’s the way how to control who can use them.  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentContro>Set\Services\USBSTOR. The value inside that key is Start.

To disable USB storage, change Start’s data to 4.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR]
”Start”=dword:00000004

To enable it again, change the data to 3.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR]
”Start”=dword:00000003

It doesn’t work on windows 10 yet.  Now we suggest you use Gilisoft USB Lock to help you lock your USB ports.

GiliSoft USB Lock is a data leak prevention tool that prevents leakage and copy of your data to USB Drives (Android phone/iPhone), External Drives, CDs/DVDs or other such portable devices. Once installed, USB Lock lets you block all such drives and devices that do not belong to you.

USB Lock can stop stealing or hacking and you can share your PC with anyone without fear of data theft. This is an easy USB Secure Software and powerful Endpoint DLP Suite that helps you to lock usb port,make dvd/cd burner read-only, block some websites, forbid some programs and disable more devices.