{"id":7065,"date":"2023-07-24T11:15:55","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T09:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esferize.com\/?p=7065"},"modified":"2023-07-24T11:33:01","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T09:33:01","slug":"dangers-of-free-charging-stations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.esferize.com\/en\/dangers-of-free-charging-stations\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangers of free charging stations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">This holiday season, be careful where you charge your device! <\/span><strong style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Free charging stations<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"> are becoming increasingly common and can pose <\/span><strong style=\"font-size: 16px;\">serious dangers<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">. They can be found in airports, restaurants, shopping centres and even on public transport.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And, as always, taking advantage of a need, there are <strong>cyber attackers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not that the restaurant owner wants to get into our phone to give himself a good review. The problem with these charging areas that can save us from so much trouble is that they are <strong>public<\/strong> <strong>and<\/strong> thus <strong>vulnerable<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Can you charge your phone?<br \/>\nIf you have no other choice, yes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>But remember:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>It is imperative that you make sure you have the <strong>data transfer option disabled<\/strong> on your device.\n<ul>\n<li>On some devices, the &#8220;<strong>charge only<\/strong>&#8221; option is usually the default, but it is a good idea to check this.<\/li>\n<li>On others, you may notice that whenever you connect the cable to a computer, a message appears asking <strong>if you want to trust that device<\/strong> and let it access your photos and videos.<\/li>\n<li>In the latter case, seeing this message on a public charging port should set off our alarm bells and, in any case, answer &#8221;<strong>Do not allow<\/strong>&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>How do they alter charging points?<\/h2>\n<p>Sometimes, cybercriminals use this vulnerability to turn a simple point to recharge your battery into a window for an attack. As they are open to everyone, a malicious user might be able to modify them in such a way that when they charge your device, they can <strong>install malware<\/strong> on it.<\/p>\n<p>It is also common to leave a carefully &#8220;forgotten&#8221;<strong> cable<\/strong> to one of these ports and, in an emergency, think of using it to charge our mobile phone. As we can imagine, this could lead to <strong>serious problems on our device<\/strong> and be a <strong>danger to our data<\/strong> and that of our organisation.<\/p>\n<p>Through this technique, which has been baptised as <strong>juice-jacking<\/strong>, attackers manage to install malware on the device that is connected to the <strong>charging point<\/strong> (usually via <strong>USB<\/strong>), but they are also able to obtain sensitive data from our device, such as passwords or sensitive information.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"centrable-test-content\">To better understand how this happens, we need to understand how a USB works. Even though we use it in our daily lives, do we really know how it is made?<\/h3>\n<p>If we take the nearest cable we have \u2014we are sure we have one not too far away while we are reading this article\u2014, we will be able to see the <strong>four pins<\/strong> it is composed of (some versions may have increased the number). Well, two of the pins are responsible for <strong>charging our device<\/strong>, but, apart from this, the other two are responsible for <strong>data transfer<\/strong>. This is what cybercriminals take advantage of to easily steal information from our devices.<\/p>\n<p>A similar attack to juice-jacking, and perhaps even more dangerous, is <strong>video-jacking<\/strong>, which consists of <strong>recording the screen of our device<\/strong> and sending it via the same method, uploading via a manipulated USB. In this case, anything we do or see on our phone will also be visible to the cyber-attacker, who will be able to take advantage of our data.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"centrable-test-content\">Alternatives and tips<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Use <strong>power banks<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Always carry <strong>your own cable and adapter<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>There are <strong>USB data blockers<\/strong>. These are devices that allow power to pass through to charge your device, but block data transfer.<\/li>\n<li>Also, as mentioned above, make sure you have the &#8220;<strong>charge only<\/strong>&#8221; option activated on your device.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">You may be interested in our article on<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esferize.com\/en\/how-to-connect-peacefully-to-public-wifi-on-holiday\/\">how to connect peacefully to public Wi-Fi on holiday<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This holiday season, be careful where you charge your device!  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":7064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[225,228,223],"tags":[1356,1357,1359,1358],"class_list":["post-7065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","category-security-on-the-internet","category-technology","tag-dangers-of-free-charging-stations","tag-free-charging-stations","tag-juice-jacking-en","tag-video-jacking-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Dangers of free charging stations - Esferize<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Be careful where you charge your device! 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