With the intensive use that we give to the mobile phone, it is natural to run out of battery every two times three. In recent years, all kinds of public chargers have emerged in train or metro stations, airports, hospitals, congresses and events, etc. However, while quite useful, it is also a huge risk if said charging station has been tampered with.
Police sources are warning about different manipulation practices of public chargers, with hackers using those USB cables to steal sensitive information from your smartphone.
Manipulation of public chargers
Similar to USB sticks that were put on walls, which could infect devices they are connected to, while you are using free USB charging services, if they have modified it, hackers infect your phone with malware and steal your sensitive data in a process known as ” Juice Jacking “.
If you connect the mobile to the computer frequently, it is normal that you have it set to USB MTP mode by default and that the PC directly detects the mobile and allows access to the storage memory. In the same way, anyone can access your mobile if you connect it to a USB port if it is connected to a computer. In addition to someone being able to access the data you have stored on your mobile, a hacker can introduce malware through the USB port.
Unplug your phone immediately if you receive a file transfer message while charging your phone through a public charging station. As soon as you connect your phone to any of these charging ports, your phone could become vulnerable and subject to data theft . Hackers could control your phone and commit cyber crimes from your device and you wouldn’t even know this is happening through your phone connected to these USB ports.
Please note that we are talking about a USB charging port here, not to be confused with a regular electrical switch socket that you connect to your charging adapter.
Tips to Prevent Juice Jacking
To prevent before curing, it is best to bring your charging adapter to connect it to the current in the devices enabled for it or, failing that, bring an external battery. Even if it runs out of battery, a good way to make sure that the USB port is not going to be used to steal your data is to first plug the external battery into the public USB port , and then the mobile to the external battery and that it is charging. through it and not directly.
Another precaution to keep in mind is to activate the charging only mode and not the one we mentioned before of MTP. Similar to this, we can be careful to carry USB cables that only support charging and not data transfer , so that, even if the public charger is tampered with, they cannot access our data.