what is juice hacking and what does it potentially open up mobile users to?
What is Juice Jacking? And how does information technology affect your smartphone when you plug it into a public phone charging station?
If you have ever been out and about away from dwelling house or running errands, you've probably had your phone'due south battery drain on you right when you needed information technology almost. When this inconvenient situation arises, you might run straight for a handy public prison cell phone charging station to fill up your telephone's bombardment quickly. For this reason, charging stations have become an essential function of airports, malls, and other public places. However, people have begun to worry whether public telephone charging stations pose potential risks to their data and security.
Experts on data privacy have identified that it is possible for people with malicious intent to steal data off of your phone through telephone charging stations. This practice has been given a proper name: juice jacking. In this article, we will examine what juice jacking is, how to protect yourself and your data from potential risks in public, and how ChargeTech charging stations protect the privacy of the user.
What is Juice Jacking?
Juice Jacking is when hackers either load malware or steal data from user'southward phones through the USB cables in public phone charging stations. This act can happen wherever public phone charging stations are located and present a security risk for smartphone users everywhere such equally airports, hotels, sporting events, and other public venues.
Information technology is important to notation that at that place are no known cases of juice jacking occurring, yet, it is still important to exist aware of the potential risks and how to protect yourself and your information.
Juice jacking is facilitated through the usage of information transfer capable USB cables in public cell phone charging stations. If hackers take access to data transfer cables connected to your telephone, then they could possibly acquire your personal emails, passwords, and even banking data. While many believe that computers are the only electronic devices capable of being hacked, juice jacking represents a new way for cybercriminals to proceeds admission to the personal content stored on smartphones.
There are certain things to wait out for when using a public phone charging station to keep yourself prophylactic from public jacking and practice cyber safety for your smartphone.
Public Juice Jacking & How information technology Can Touch Yous
To showcase the potential danger to smartphone users posed past juice jacking, NBC News constructed a fake cell phone charging station where a cybersecurity expert was able to access user's devices, view and tape everything on their phone screens just from the individuals plugging their devices into a phone charging station. Clearly, the participants in the study were alarmed by this invasion of their privacy and were made privy to the potential security issues in using a public telephone charging station.
As demonstrated past NBC, this presents a huge data risk, particularly for people who are on the go oftentimes and ofttimes rely on phone charging stations in airports, malls, and other public spaces. All the same, cybercriminals can employ juice-jacking to do more than than but record a smartphone screen. A similar article detailing the effects of juice-jacking from the website Malwarebytes described the amount of potential admission hackers could get from someone plugging their phone into an unsecured public phone charging station.
"A cybercriminal could breach an unsecured kiosk using malware, then drop an additional payload that steals information from connected devices. In that location are crawlers that tin search your phone for personally ide ntifiable data (PII), account credentials, banking-related or credit card information in seconds. There are besides many malicious apps that can clone all of i phone'due south information to some other telephone, using a Windows or Mac estimator as a middleman. So, if that's what is hiding on the other finish of the USB port, a threat thespian could get all they demand to impersonate you."
All of that is a scrap frightening and may accept y'all questioning whether or not information technology is rubber to use public phone charging stations. Fortunately, ChargeTech products, including our prison cell phone charging stations are designed with consumer privacy in mind, keeping users 100% condom when charging at a ChargeTech telephone charging station is a peak priority.
How do ChargeTech Products Combat Juice Jacking?
ChargeTech charging stations pose no gamble to users' data considering our USB charging cords are equipped with charging capabilities only. While a standard charging cord, such as an Apple USB to Lightning cord, tin exist plugged into a calculator and used to transmit information betwixt devices, ChargeTech charging cables accept no such adequacy, making our public phone charging station products, like the S9 Power Floor Stand, WM9 Wall Mount Charging Station and Telephone Charging Tabular array/Station safe from juice jacking. These products pose no risk to users, letting smartphone users charge their device with peace of listen, knowing their information is not at risk from hackers and cyber-criminals.
The Difference Between Data Transfer USB Cords and Charging USB Cords
No data transfer can occur with a ChargeTech product, equally the cords used in our phone charging stations are accuse but, keeping users safe from malicious hackers. An article on the website Dignited explains the difference between USB charging cords and USB data transfer capable cords thusly:
"What differentiates a charge-only USB cable from a information cable is how they are produced. More precisely, their wiring arrangement — the number of wires within the cablevision.
Information cables typically contain four wires (positive, negative, data transfer & data receive). The positive (+) and negative (-) wires carry electric power to the device while the other two data transfer (D+) and data receive (D-) wires are responsible for data commutation. Charge-only cables, on the other paw, only take the positive and negative power wires only lack the data exchange wires."
ChargeTech solely produces charging products with accuse-only USB cables, which means that our charging products are safe from juice jacking. ChargeTech is fully committed to user'due south privacy and security and have designed our products with these protocols in mind. Users can charge their phones risk-free from whatsoever ChargeTech prison cell phone charging station and tin can rest assured that their private information is safe from cybercriminals.
Despite the protections we design our products with, not every public prison cell telephone charging station is made with ChargeTech'due south level of user security. Still, there are several ways you tin can avert juice jacking in public spaces and keep your smartphones safe when y'all notice yourself with a non ChargeTech product.
Ways You Can Defend Yourself From Juice Jacking
Not every other prison cell phone charging station contains the same level of security as ChargeTech's charging products and as seen in a higher place, it is hard for the naked heart to differentiate betwixt charge-merely cables and data-transfer cables. Because of this, other precautions can be taken against juice jacking while charging your phone away from habitation risk-complimentary. Though few instances of juice jacking have been documented in public spaces, equally described by both NBC and MalwareBytes, at that place is the potential for juice jacking in public, and smart-telephone users should know how to protect themselves.
Using Portable Chargers
Ane such solution to avoid juice jacking is a portable charger similar ChargeTech's Portable Ability Outlet or Portable Power Supply, bachelor on the ChargeTech website. By bringing a portable charger with you in public spaces like sporting events, hotels, malls, libraries, and at the airport, y'all can avoid using a potential data transfer cord or malicious phone charger outlet at a cell phone charging station. Instead, you volition take a safe and easy style to keep your phone charged away from home at all times.
ChargeTech offers a diversity of portable chargers and wireless battery packs that work with modernistic needs offer a charging solution for anyone who is on the motility and needs portable power. These products include the Portable Power Outlet AM 27K, the Antimicrobial Portable Ability Supply 54K and the 10K USB-C Wireless Battery Pack. ChargeTech has a variety of options for portable power that fit the varied needs of smartphone users everywhere. Owning a ChargeTech portable power supply puts the capability in your hands to accuse your phone wherever you go, without having to worry about hackers juice jacking your data.
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Using a Data Blocker
Another way to protect yourself against juice jacking is the use of USB data blockers, a small device that can be purchased relatively cheaply and placed on any USB cord before plugging it into a public USB charging outlet. This functions as a safeguard for plugging into a public phone charging outlet, similar one that might be constitute on an Plane or other forms of public transport, similar a city motorcoach or subway. These inexpensive products have been found to be effective and allow smartphone users to plug into whatsoever cell telephone charging station or USB charging outlet without any potential security ramifications.
Should You lot Worry About Juice Jacking?
With the number of hackers and cyber-criminals actively trying to steal people's information, juice jacking seems like a disturbing new extension of this behavior, accessing data through smartphones instead of computers. The good news is that instances of public juice jacking have been relatively depression and stand for more of a "what if" scenario for smartphone users, every bit opposed to a normal occurrence that happens whenever someone plugs into a public telephone charging station.
However, ChargeTech works carefully to create products that protect users from data breaches such every bit juice jacking, prizing user's privacy above all. As long as you are plugging into a ChargeTech phone charging station or portable power supply, you are prophylactic from whatever potential juice jacking. ChargeTech products prioritize user privacy, making certain that charging your device with our phone charging stations and portable power outlets is uncomplicated, user-friendly, and safety.
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Source: https://chargetech.com/juice-jacking/
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