Secure system using Thumb drives possible?

[TakenItEasy]

Since thumb drives using FAT## formatting are difficult to access remotely and their contents cant be viewed remotely could we replace the Hard drive with thumb drives to make a secure system vs remote attacks?

 

e.g.

create a bootable thumb drive

keep a cloned copy around just in case

only use fat## thumb drives to save data files, install, or run software.

 

Ideas To further increase security:

Always reboot from a clean cloned bootable drive.

Use random strings to name any directory directly off the root to prevent malware from getting copied to anywhere but the root.

Use buffer files of various sizes that keeps the drive always 100% full, then to add files it would be necessary to delete the appropriately sized buffer files first blocking any malware from getting access to the drive.

use file encryption that makes data files indistinguishable from buffer files to prevent information leaks from random sector sampling.

 

If speed wasn't an issue, would this be a completely secure system against remote hackers regardless of any other security measures?

 

All I know is that after being persistently hacked for years, the hackers accessed all data on the hard drives, backup drives drives encrypted files, full disk encryption, data on three separate cloud accounts, air gapped removing all network or wireless drivers. You name it I tried it.

 

Files on thumb drives with obfuscated root directories was the only data that the hackers could never reach except once when I accidentally copied a map of the thumb drive to the hard drive.

Edited October 16, 2017 by TakenItEasy

[3s-gtech]

I'd be looking more at preventing them getting in rather than making your working day that difficult and obscure! How have they managed to get in with such ease and free-reign?

[Arthur]

Since thumb drives using FAT## formatting are difficult to access remotely and their contents cant be viewed remotely could we replace the hard drive with thumb drives to make a secure system vs remote attacks?

What type of remote attacks are you thinking of?

 

Windows Vista onwards can't be installed on a FAT32 formatted drive either.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Arthur

[synaesthesia]

I can't be sure if this is an odd bot or just a daft question. You can absolutely remotely access a system installed on a USB drive, they have exactly the same weaknesses regardless of what the OS is installed on. I would say clearly there are larger issues.

[FN-GM]

What type of remote attacks are you thinking of?

 

Windows Vista onwards can't be installed on a FAT32 formatted drive either.

 

He is talking about USB drives.

[Arthur]

He is talking about USB drives.

I know.

 

Unless I have misread his post it sounds like the OP wants to replace the hard drive in Windows PCs with USB flash drives.

[mavhc]

Since thumb drives using FAT## formatting are difficult to access remotely and their contents cant be viewed remotely could we replace the Hard drive with thumb drives to make a secure system vs remote attacks?

 

No. And also no.

[FN-GM]

I will be quiet then

[TakenItEasy]

What type of remote attacks are you thinking of?

 

Windows Vista onwards can't be installed on a FAT32 formatted drive either.

 

Live hacks or malware.

 

I thought that was probably be the case. However, data files and mobile executables can be stored on fat32 formated drives.

 

For the system drive, you can always keep a clean bootable drive that can be cloned using a thumb drive cloning device so you can always reboot to a clean system.

Edited October 24, 2017 by TakenItEasy