IBM is instituting a company-wide, world-wide policy of banning the use of removable media, including USB memory sticks (“thumb drives”), SD cards, and similar storage devices. There are two reasons for this: misplaced or lost media could have proprietary files fall into the wrong hands, and some removable storage devices can be used as a vector for malware distribution. IBM plans to encourage the use of secure cloud storage for files that need to be available across networks and users.
See this article from The Register (UK) for details on the IBM policy: TheRegister.co.UK IBM Bans Removable Storage