Public charging stations may put your data at risk: Experts

If your cell phone is out of battery and after desperately searching for a charging point, when you heave a sigh of relief after coming across a free USB port at the airport, shopping malls, mobile gallery or even a cafeteria, that's the moment you should think twice before plugging in the cord inside your phone as by doing so, you are allowing the access of malware in your device which can compromise your data. 'Juice jacking', as it is called by the cyber experts, occurs when the USB charging stations are modified by hackers so that whenever the phone is charged, the malicious element gets passed into the device.

"Charging your devices with any random USB wires is indeed equal to risk as after the charging is done, the device may function normally for a while but later, the malware starts performing its function which is indeed troublesome to get rid of. Through juice jacking, the phone gets vulnerable to allow incoming of all sorts of malware like adware, bots, spyware, etc. Plugging into a public USB cord is like picking any random stuff on the side of the road and meddling with it without even having the knowledge about the content it has. Juice jacking broadly performs three things which are the installation of malware, transmit other unwanted data and steal your personal information and other data," cyber expert Ritesh Bhatia told DNA.

In order to escape from falling into the soup of such tedious cyberattacks, experts have prescribed some basic guidelines like charging the phone from a wall electric outlet using an adapter or always carrying a personal charger but the lack of awareness among the users is a result why such instances are reported. "The real issue apart from malware installation is the threat of ransomware which may emerge after critical data slips into the hands of miscreants.

Speaking about Mumbai specifically, no such instance has come into the light but preparedness is required. People fail to discover about the presence of unknown devices behind the USB wires which cause unwanted trouble," said Advocate and cybersecurity expert Prashant Mali.

Experts have suggested users to keep their personal chargers along with USB chord which prevents accidental data exchange.

‘Juice Jacking’ Poses Major Threat

• Is your mobile phone data safe from such a cyber threat
• Keep the charger of your device with you and preferably the one which could be attached with electrical sockets.
• A secured phone which is locked and protected by a password or a pin ensures there is invasion of malware.
• If possible, use a USB cable which enables only charging purposes to control the pairing behaviour of device.
• Carry your personal backup battery or a power bank so as to avoid finding charging stations and kiosk or wall outlet.
• While charging the phone at public charging stations, switch off the phone as it averts possibility of malware attack.
• Disable data transfer feature on your mobile phones while charging.

What is Juice jacking

Juice jacking is an underrated serious security threat in which the setup of data or power supply through the same cable paves the way for malicious malware to gain access to your phones during the charging process. The attack could be as simple as an invasion of privacy wherein your phone, which is getting charged from a USB cable, pairs with the unknown source concealed with the charging kiosk and sensitive data like photos and contact information gets transferred to the malicious device. The term which was coined in 2011 simply refers to a hack attempt that uses public charging stations to inject the malware.