If you travel a lot, you might have come across many public USB charging stations.
However, next time, you should avoid using the public charging stations – said the Los Angeles District Attorney in a security alert published last week.
If an official points it out as a warning, you may want to think twice before plugging in your phone in a USB charging station.
Shockingly, it may contain dangerous malware. It is worth noting that a USB connection lets you charge/transfer data as well.
So, there is no particular restriction on how the data is being transferred over to the phone. And, this can be potentially exploited by an attacker to silently add a malicious file to your device.
Even though it is tough to exploit it everywhere, it is still something that is possible to do. This type of attack also has a unique name to describe it – “Juice Jacking”.
Apparently, this is not something new and a couple of proofs-of-concept have been demonstrated over the years but not everyone focused their attention on it until now.
You can also watch a relevant video to the story to understand it better:
Every time something like this comes up, we are reminded that we have to be cautious about everything related to our smartphones in order to keep them secure.
And, this is the least you could do – not charge them at public USB stations.