Disable the use of USB disks for a user in Linux

One of the most common security problems in a company is the leakage of information, this is generally given by unrestricted access to the use of mass storage devices such as memory sticks and USB drives, burners. CD / DVD, Internet, etc

This time, I am going to show you how we can restrict a user's access to USB mass storage devices in Linux, so that access to the port is not lost in case of having to connect a mouse USB or charge a battery through it.

Note: all types of USB mass storage device will be disabled, including music players, cameras, etc.

The first thing we must do is remove the user from the group

plugdev

, for this, we execute the following line in the terminal:

sudo gpasswd -d [user] plugdev

This will serve so that once the session is started, Linux do not allow access to these USB devices, but it will not work in case the device is connected from before starting the system.

To avoid these situations, we must make a

blacklist

the module

usb_storage

in the File

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

, as follows:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

We add the following lines to the end of the open file:

# Restricción de acceso a dispositivos de almacenamiento masivo USB por Ubunlog.com
blacklist usb_storage

We save and close the edited file.

Now we just have to restart our system for the changes to take effect.

In case your USB ports continue to automatically mount the storage media even after following these steps, I recommend reading the entry I wrote to Ubuntising the planet called «Disable USB disk loading in Ubuntu (Extreme Edition)«, In it you can find some steps to follow a little more drastic to ensure the correct deactivation of the USB ports for storage media.