With the increase in technology usage, the cases of hacking and stealing personal data are only increasing by the day.
Nowadays, the FBI has introduced the new concept of ‘juice jacking’ wherein hackers introduce malware inside public USB ports that infiltrate the device plugged into the port that is compromised. This would then be capable of stealing data, affecting the device and many more dangerous things.
What Is Juice Jacking?
The FBI for the past few days has been posting on their social media about how using public USB charging ports have risks to them.
According to them, these ports can be easily corrupted, and if one plug in their smartphone or any other device into them then through ‘juice jacking’ hackers can access personal data like credit card numbers, and sensitive information or install malware on the device.
Read More: 81 Mumbai Residents Lose A Combined Rs. 1 Crore In Bank KYC And PAN Scam Over 16 Days
FBI Denver in a tweet on April 6th 2023 wrote that “Avoid using free charging stations in airports, hotels or shopping centers. Bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devices. Carry your own charger and USB cord and use an electrical outlet instead.”
The term juice jacking itself goes all the way back to 2011 when researchers at DefCon, an annual hacking convention, demonstrated how a charging kiosk could be quite dangerous to cybersecurity and the ways it can be manipulated.
Ritesh Chugh, an associate professor and technology and society expert at Central Queensland University also called these public charging ports a “significant privacy hazard” in an email.
In his email, he further wrote that “as little as one minute of charging time may be adequate for compromising a user’s phone.”
While it is not yet known how frequent or common these attacks are, they are certainly there and according to Chugh “clearly indicate the persistent danger posed by this method of attack.”
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: News18, The Washington Post, Fortune
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: Juice Jacking, USB Ports, public USB Ports, hacking, public USB Ports unsafe, USB Ports hacking, public USB Ports hacking, public USB Ports malware
Disclaimer: We do not hold any right, copyright over any of the images used, these have been taken from Google. In case of credits or removal, the owner may kindly mail us.
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