Write protection of a USB flash drive allows you to protect it from various types of malicious programs that can get there from the outside. Unfortunately, now it is not as easy to do it as it used to be, but it can still be done.
USBDummyProtect
Of course, in order to protect a USB flash drive from writing to it, you do not need to open it, sort out the chip inside, etc. To do this, it is enough to use special software, of which there are quite a few.
For example, a user can use a small but understandable utility USBDummyProtect. It is worth noting that this utility weighs only 4 kilobytes. The whole procedure is that after the user transfers the downloaded file to removable media and runs it, then all the free space will be occupied by only one file - dummy.file. It is he who allows you to protect a USB drive from writing any information to it, whether it be simple folders and files or malware. In order to reclaim space on the drive, you just need to delete this file or re-run the utility, after which the free space will open again.
Fsutil
Advanced users of personal computers can go further and protect not only a regular USB flash drive from writing, but also a bootable one (one that has an autorun.inf boot file). On the Internet, you can find another utility called fsutil and use it. Unfortunately, compared to the previous version, this one has a limitation on the file size. It is ideal to use such a utility if the volume of the USB drive does not exceed 4 gigabytes (the utility itself fills a maximum of 4 gigabytes of free space).
There is an improved version of the same program, which first determines the free space on the disk drive, and only then fills it with files of a certain size (1 gigabyte each). In order to remove such protection, you just need to delete any of the created files, and a certain space will be immediately freed up.
AUTOSTOP 2.4
There is another utility that works on the same principle, it is AUTOSTOP 2.4. The only difference between this software and the previous two is that it is a little more convenient to use. The thing is that in the previous cases, the user himself must observe the process and check whether the files were created or not. After each successful creation of a new file, this program plays a short beep, and when all the files have been installed, a long beep will appear, symbolizing the end of the procedure. In addition, this utility has a graphical shell, which means that it will be easier for novice users to use just such a program.
