Report: 78% of IT security pros admit plugging in "found" USB drives

More than three-quarters of IT security professionals polled recently said they have used a USB flash drive that they found lying around, according to a new survey from AhnLab, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based IT security vendor.

The polling, which queried 300 attendees at February's RSA Conference, also found that that data saved on the "found" USB drives often included viruses, rootkits and bot executables.

Responding to the results, Brian Laing, VP of marketing and business development at AhnLab, said basic security practices are not being followed. Even IT security professionals are clearly ignoring basic rules, he said.

The study also determined that more than 68 percent of those polled had been involved in a security breach, either at home or work – with many of the incursions owing to infected USB drives.