asked on 2/26/2016

Locking down Removable Storage(USB/Flash Drives) but creating excemption for DVD/CD Drive

Title pretty much says what I am needing help with. We are wanting to lock down USB/Flash Drive access on our domain, but we noticed the cd/dvd drives on users computers are listed under Removable Storage so these get locked down as well. Is there any way to create exemption for these drives? I saw some articles on finding the hardware id on the cd/dvd drives but where would I list these in the group policy?

Thanks for any assistance on this.

Active Directory Hardware OS Security Peripherals Security

Last Comment

McKnife

2/29/2016

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Lee Ingalls

2/26/2016

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Deborah Canales

2/26/2016

ASKER

Hi Lee,

Thanks for the assistance. However I don't want to disable CD/DVD drives, just USB flash drives. However when I enabled GP settings for removable disks, it locked down the cd/dvd drive as well.

Deborah Canales

2/26/2016

ASKER

Hi Lee,

I reread your last comment and I believe I misunderstood the instructions. Sorry about that. Let me try this and I will let you know.

Thanks!

Deborah Canales

2/26/2016

ASKER

Perfect. It worked. Thanks! Consider this closed.

Lee Ingalls

2/26/2016

My pleasure Deborah. Enjoy the weekend!

Regards, Lee

McKnife

2/29/2016

Depending on what you are trying to protect against, the solution is not complete, yet. If an attacker would connect a usb device that could mimic a keyboard, it would not be stopped by this GPO. The attack I am talking about is usualy referred to as "usb rubberducky". Find more info and a solution here: https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/18574/Bad-USB-time-to-fight-back.html