Kumari Palany & Co

Juice Jacking: Public Charging will stole data

Posted on: 15/Oct/2019 9:58:47 AM
Imagine, you are using a public charging spot to charge your smartphone and afterward you find that your data has been stolen.  Shocking isn’t it!!

How many of you know what a Juice Jacking is?

It is important to note that juice jacking is a type of cyber attack that involves a charging port. Here, the charging port doubles as a data connection over a USB. Point to be noted is in this cyber attack installation of malware is involved. It might also involve secretly copying sensitive data from a smartphone, computer device, tablet, etc. There are many places where this issue of juice jacking could take place. These places are coffee shops, offices, airport and hotel lounges, railway stations, etc.

Not many of us are aware of the fact that public charging spots could be both advantageous as well as disadvantageous. It is brought out that such free public phone chargers could secretly install malware on your device. It is said that juice jacking is one of the most underrated security threats but it is a serious issue.

To compromise a public USB charging port, technology is needed and this technology is available easily. This has resulted in many innocent smartphone users getting malware installed on their smartphones.

It is worthy to mention that most of the manufacturers of smartphones do not care for the battery capacity and they compromise with the battery capacity. Their main purpose is to produce smartphones thin and light in weight. The low battery capacity makes the smartphone users hurry for any charging spots nearby.

By these ways, we could protect our smartphone from getting juice jacked

By carrying a power bank:

It is one of the safest as well as the most convenient way by which this juice jacking issue could be avoided. By carrying a power bank or extra battery, we could charge our device easily without the risk of getting juice jacked.  

Search for an electrical outlet:

It must be noted that we should search for an electric outlet and by this USB charging at the public spots could be avoided.

By using mobile phone security features:

Many of us do not use the security features available in our smartphones. It must be noted that when our smartphone is connected to a USB cable it asks our permission to transfer the data or not.  By clicking cancel, our device would be protected from juice jacking, etc.