USB redirection and filtering
The USB device is redirected from a physical device to the virtual desktop using USB Request Block (URB) network redirection. The USB device driver needs to be installed on the virtual desktop, but it does not need to be installed on the client machine. Recent enhancements in VMware View have improved device compatibility as well as expanded support for USB redirection on Windows, Mac, and Linux hosts.
In a growing number of organizations, USB hard drives are prohibited. This is because of the risk of data leakage from end users copying sensitive data to a USB hard drive and then misusing the device or using the USB hard drive's data maliciously. However, simply blocking all USB devices may disallow the following perfectly accepted USB devices:
Pointing devices
Audio headsets
Transcription playback pedals
Medical equipment, for example, a patient monitoring device
Scientific equipment, for example, a metering device
Photographic equipment, for example, a video recorder...
