Businesses should scan USBs before opening them at work to ensure security, an industry expert has advised.

Information security solutions firm Kaspersky has warned that when employees bring iPods or USBs into their workplace and connect them to the computer network they are posing a possible risk to computer security.

David Emm, a senior technology consultant with Kaspersky, said people could "unwittingly" be a potential threat to their own organisations.

He explained: "USBs and iPods raise one of the big potential issues, because these things have a very big capacity.

"[Just] say to people: 'As you bring [a USB] into the organisation stick it into a machine and scan it'."

He said having a procedure like this in place would give the organisation confidence in its security without banning employees from bringing personal items into work.

According to research by Websense, 90 per cent of businesses have suffered from hacker attacks in the last year while 45 per cent have had their systems infected by viruses.


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