The Carbon Black App Control Agent can detect several different kinds of devices on computers. In general, if a device has an identifiable file system, it is added to the Devices tables.

How a detected device is managed depends upon whether it is identified as fixed or removable:

  • Fixed devices are included in the device inventory, but they cannot be approved, banned, or blocked by Carbon Black App Control rules.

  • Removable devices are included in the device inventory, and they can be approved, banned, and blocked by Carbon Black App Control rules.

Carbon Black App Control must rely on the information provided by a device to determine whether it is fixed or removable, and there are some cases in which the information is incorrect.

Specific categories of devices detected by Carbon Black App Control Agents include:

  • IDE Devices
  • SATA Devices
  • SCSI Devices
  • USB Devices
  • FireWire (IEEE 1394) Devices
  • Floppy Disk Drives
  • Serial Bus Protocol 2 Devices

The USB devices detected may include solid-state “stick”-type drives, CD/DVD drives, and media card readers. For all CD/DVD drives and for card readers on macOS, the drive itself, not the media it reads, appears in the devices table. On Windows agents, it is possible that both a media card and the card reader may be reported on the Devices page.

Note: In addition to the device settings and rules described here, you can create custom path rules that affect what a device can or can’t do. See Specifying Devices in Paths in Windows Rules in Custom Software Rules for more information.