Charging in public places? Watch out for “juice jacking”
Airports, hotels, cafés, even shopping centres, offer public charging points where you can boost your phone or laptop battery on the go.
They’ve been in the news after the FBI recently tweeted advice to stop using them. Crooks have figured out how to hijack USB ports to install malware and monitoring software onto devices as they charge.
The security risk of “juice jacking” was long thought to be more theoretical than real, but the tech needed to carry out an attack has got smaller and cheaper and easier to use. This means less sophisticated criminals are now turning their hand to it.
So how does it work?