Shortcut Virus: What's the effect on a Mac? I was at school when we tested a PowerPoint presentation on one of the school's laptops. Apparently, when we got home, many of my classmates told me that the laptop gave a "shortcut virus" on their USB flash drives. The flash drives contained a shortcut to the flash drive itself, which would lead to nothing. Files would have to be recovered.

I haven't plugged in the flash drive to my Mac yet. I have no antivirus installed and I'm not sure if flash drives are scanned prior to being shown on macOS. If I plug it in, will it give a virus to my Mac?

Thanks.
A shortcut to itself is not an issue. One on the flash drive will not cause issues when connected to macOS or even when interacted with.

As an example, you'll find a ‘recursive’ link already in macOS: /Volumes/Macintosh HD → /.