Quote:On Thursday, industrial and engineering conglomerate Honeywell released a new report exploring the potential risks USB drives possess and found current protective practices wanting.

According to the firm, USB drives pose a "significant and intentional" cybersecurity threat to industrial systems and could be weaponized to disrupt organizations and potentially go so far as to interrupt core services, such as those offered by water and energy utilities.

After scanning 50 customer locations across the US, South America, Europe, and the Middle East, Honeywell found that 44 percent of USB devices present at these industrial facilities contained at least one file with a security issue. In total, 26 percent of these threats had the potential to cause operational problems, including the loss of visibility or control by operators.