We would like to disable all USB devices connected to our HP Red Hat Linux based workstations. I would like to disable USB flash or hard drives, which users can use with physical access to a system to quickly copy sensitive data from it. How do I disable USB device support under CentOS Linux, RHEL version 5.x/6.x/7.x and Fedora latest version?
The USB storage drive automatically detects USB flash or hard drives. You can quickly force and disable USB storage devices under any Linux distribution. The modprobe program used for automatic kernel module loading. It can be configured not load the USB storage driver upon demand. This will prevent the modprobe program from loading the usb-storage module, but will not prevent root (or another privileged program) from using the insmod/modprobe program to load the module manually. USB sticks containing harmful malware may be used to steal your personal data. It is not uncommon for USB sticks to be used to carry and transmit destructive malware and viruses to computers. The attacker can target MS-Windows, macOS (OS X), Android and Linux based system.
usb-storage driver
The usb-storage.ko is the USB Mass Storage driver for Linux operating system. You can see the file by typing the following command:
# ls -l /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.ko
All you have to do is disable or remove the usb-storage.ko driver to restrict to use USB devices on Linux such as:
- USB keyboards
- USB mice
- USB pen drive
- USB hard disk
- Other USB block storage
BIOS option
You can also disable USB from system BIOS configuration option. Make sure BIOS is password protected. This is recommended option so that nobody can boot it from USB.
Notes:
In linux it’s even more easily done, by unloading the usb_storage module: for disable :-
# modprobe -r usb_storage
for enable :-
# modprobe -i usb_storage
The easiest way to disable usb storage device in linux is create following file And add following line inside the file
# touch /etc/modprobe.d/no-usb
install usb-storage /bin/true