Previously I’ve suggested some tricks that can possibly help you to recover, track and locate your stolen laptop. What about small and useful gadgets such as USB flash drives, memory cards and MP3 players that are easy to carry around but also easy to misplace and get stolen?

Here is a free security program that you can use to help protect your devices by alerting you when your USB digital device is connected to another individual’s computer. It is also able to track down the location of where your device is being used.

ihound is revolutionary software that helps protect your devices by alerting you when your USB digital device is connected to another individual’s computer. All you need to do is:

1. Sign up for a free account at ihound and login.
2. Add a device to track.
3. Download the ihound software that is specifically used to recognize your device
4. Run the downloaded ihound software to install a tracking program on to your device
Install tracking software to track stolen device

When your missing USB digital device is being plugged in to a computer, you will:
1. Get a notification email telling you that your tracked device is being located.
2. Get a detailed report on where it is being used by logging in to ihound’s website.

The method that ihound uses to track your USB devices is pretty simple. It uses the same method on how viruses spreads from USB flash drive. ihound copies 4 files (autorun.inf, Device, icon.ico, MyPasswords.exe) to the root of your USB device. Autorun.inf, Device and icon.ico are hidden and only MyPasswords.exe is visible which looks like a text document.

Executable file looks like a text file

So if the user’s computer settings has “Do not show hidden files and folders” selected and also “Hide extensions for known file types” checked, most likely they’ll be tricked to run MyPasswords.exe thinking that it is a text file containing passwords. Even accessing the drive letter from My Computer will also automatically run MyPasswords.exe.

When MyPasswords.exe file is being run, important information such as computer name, user name, operating system, IP address, time and date will be automatically being sent to ihound’s server and ihound will also email the owner to notify that the missing device has been located. The owner can then log in to ihound’s website to print the report and bring it to the police or other authorities and have them call the ISP provider in order to determine who is using the IP address that was tracked.

Track Missing Device

I was wondering that since ihound software uses virus technology to try to trick the thief into running MyPasswords.exe, will it be identified as a virus or riskware? I uploaded MyPasswords.exe to VirusTotal and all 40 antivirus did not detect MyPasswords.exe as virus.

File MyPasswords.exe received on 2009.05.30 03:33:09 (UTC)
Antivirus Version Last Update Result
a-squared 4.0.0.101 2009.05.30 -
AhnLab-V3 5.0.0.2 2009.05.29 -
AntiVir 7.9.0.180 2009.05.29 -
Antiy-AVL 2.0.3.1 2009.05.27 -
Authentium 5.1.2.4 2009.05.29 -
Avast 4.8.1335.0 2009.05.29 -
AVG 8.5.0.339 2009.05.29 -
BitDefender 7.2 2009.05.30 -
CAT-QuickHeal 10.00 2009.05.29 -
ClamAV 0.94.1 2009.05.29 -
Comodo 1215 2009.05.29 -
DrWeb 5.0.0.12182 2009.05.29 -
eSafe 7.0.17.0 2009.05.27 -
eTrust-Vet 31.6.6530 2009.05.30 -
F-Prot 4.4.4.56 2009.05.29 -
F-Secure 8.0.14470.0 2009.05.29 -
Fortinet 3.117.0.0 2009.05.30 -
GData 19 2009.05.30 -
Ikarus T3.1.1.57.0 2009.05.30 -
K7AntiVirus 7.10.749 2009.05.29 -
Kaspersky 7.0.0.125 2009.05.30 -
McAfee 5630 2009.05.29 -
McAfee+Artemis 5630 2009.05.29 -
McAfee-GW-Edition 6.7.6 2009.05.29 -
Microsoft 1.4701 2009.05.29 -
NOD32 4116 2009.05.29 -
Norman 6.01.05 2009.05.29 -
nProtect 2009.1.8.0 2009.05.30 -
Panda 10.0.0.14 2009.05.29 -
PCTools 4.4.2.0 2009.05.29 -
Prevx 3.0 2009.05.30 -
Rising 21.31.21.00 2009.05.27 -
Sophos 4.42.0 2009.05.30 -
Sunbelt 3.2.1858.2 2009.05.30 -
Symantec 1.4.4.12 2009.05.30 -
TheHacker 6.3.4.3.334 2009.05.29 -
TrendMicro 8.950.0.1092 2009.05.29 -
VBA32 3.12.10.6 2009.05.27 -
ViRobot 2009.5.29.1761 2009.05.29 -
VirusBuster 4.6.5.0 2009.05.29 -
 
Additional information
File size: 32768 bytes
MD5…: 05ba9227468cd8be274b428a6b9cc39b
SHA1..: 9eb91c0c4df7c6a8b726554682d8df86b8b04bea
SHA256: 39f885874a8088eb97d0a584fbd5b83d20034a4df41c99093a9d98c8fd344853
ssdeep: -
PEiD..: -
TrID..: File type identification
Win64 Executable Generic (49.3%)
Generic CIL Executable (.NET, Mono, etc.) (42.2%)
Win32 Executable Generic (4.9%)
Win16/32 Executable Delphi generic (1.1%)
Generic Win/DOS Executable (1.1%)
PEInfo: PE Structure information

( base data )
entrypointaddress.: 0x34fe
timedatestamp…..: 0x4718f8e9 (Fri Oct 19 18:35:21 2007)
machinetype…….: 0x14c (I386)

( 3 sections )
name viradd virsiz rawdsiz ntrpy md5
.text 0×2000 0×1504 0×2000 3.90 10359989d890f77b163dcecd553827c8
.rsrc 0×4000 0×3110 0×4000 3.27 c9b1417067b33af69016a29e4017f342
.reloc 0×8000 0xc 0×1000 0.01 275e249e83fc3ce939b34ce98ec25789

( 1 imports )
> mscoree.dll: _CorExeMain

( 0 exports )

PDFiD.: -
RDS…: NSRL Reference Data Set
-
ThreatExpert info: <a href=’http://www.threatexpert.com/report.aspx?md5=05ba9227468cd8be274b428a6b9cc39b’ target=’_blank’>http://www.threatexpert.com/report.aspx?md5=05ba9227468cd8be274b428a6b9cc39b</a>

Actually this method is not perfect because the person who has your USB device must run MyPasswords.exe file either by being tricked or access the USB device from My Computer. The computer must also have an Internet connection to be able to send the important information to ihound’s server. If the computer has a firewall, it will definitely tell you that MyPasswords.exe is trying to access the Internet and send information. No matter what, ihound USB device tracking software is free and takes up less than 45KB from your USB device. Who knows it might help you to recover your missing USB device someday. Better safe than sorry.

[ Track your USB digital device with ihound ]

[tags]locate, missing, ihound, track, theft[/tags]