Most of the viruses and the harmful programs come from USB drives. In Windows 10, it is also possible to disable the USB drives so the only storage medium left is the hard disks and the risks of the potential software from the USB drives minimizes to zero.
Disabling USB Storage Devices
Disabling the USB is possible in both Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Home. But in both the cases, the steps are a bit different.
Disable USB in Windows 10 Pro
In Windows 10 Professional you need to go through the Group Policy and browse to the given policy:
Computer Configurations > Administrative Templates > System > Removable Storage Access
Now choose the Removeable Disk Policies and deny read and write permissions for the USB devices. It will disable the USB drives to connect to the system and adds an extra layer of security in the USB drives.
Disable USB in Windows 10 Home
In Windows 10 Home, you need to disable USB drives from the Registry Editor, Open the Registry Editor with Administrative Privileges to handle these changes:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor
Open the Start value by double-clicking it and editing it. In most of the cases, the value is 3, you need to replace it with 4. Click on it and close the registry.
This will disable the USB drive and will not show the USB content in the file explorer.
Drawbacks of Disabling USB in Windows 10
In a Windows 10 dual boot environment, you will not be able to boot through USB and the system will accept the USB when you boot through the other operating system. In case you need to avoid these changes in the BIOS, it is necessary to add restrictions to the HDD/SSD and add password to the BIOS to prevent any authorized changes.