Reasons to Avoid Public Charging Stations for Phones and Computers

The FBI recently warned consumers not to use free public charging stations, because doing so poses significant safety risks.

The FBI claimed that the scammers have been in able to infiltrate public chargers in so you can infect devices with malware that allows hackers to access smartphones, tablet or personal computer.

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“Avoid using free charging stations at airports, hotels, or shopping malls. Bad actors have found ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and software of monitoring in the devices. Bring your own charger and USB cable and use an electrical outlet instead.”

The FBI offers similar guidelines on its website for avoiding public chargers. The security bulletin did not mention any recent cases in where users’ devices have been hacked as a result of using public charging stations.

The FBI office in Denver said the letter was an alert and that there was no specific case that led to the alert.

The FCC had also warned since 2021 about what is called “jacking”, which is a type of hacking of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablet that use the same cable for charging and data transfer, usually a “USB” cable.

The goal of this type of attack is to install malware on the device or to surreptitiously copy potentially sensitive data.

The FCC warned at the time that consumer devices with compromised USB cables could be compromised with software in able to extract usernames and passwords. The commission asked consumers to avoid those public stations.

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