can a virus from an infected computer transfer to a clean USB on its own?

[jang.kim01234]

Hi,
my computer has been infected with a malware that I can't seem to get rid of. I will probably end up doing a format of my harddrive, but before I do that I wanted to manually grab some files (mostly some docs and some videos, no executables). My question is, can a virus transfer itself to a clean usb just by plugging it in? My operating system is windows 10.

 

[USAFRet]

Hi,
my computer has been infected with a malware that I can't seem to get rid of. I will probably end up doing a format of my harddrive, but before I do that I wanted to manually grab some files (mostly some docs and some videos, no executables). My question is, can a virus transfer itself to a clean usb just by plugging it in? My operating system is windows 10.

Depends on what the virus/malware is.

 

[jang.kim01234]

1. malware bytes/windows defender can't find it even in safe mode
2. I get these warning messages from windows defender saying that unauthorized changes from a randome .exe file to my userfile were blocked (exact names are scrambled in the message so I can't actually read/find the source)
3. every once in a while it tries to connect to a random website (but is blocked by malware bytes)

does that narrow it down to what kind of malware it might be?

thank you

 

[USAFRet]

That "probably" won't transfer to a USB. Obviously, only if you don't move over whatever file was the genesis of this infestation.

 

[justsomerandomgamer]

Depends on how severe the virus is. Most of the time it won't but never get your hopes up.