logo
logo
Sign in

Travelers Beware! That Free Charging Station Could Hack Your Phone

avatar
Thornie Longmuir
Travelers Beware! That Free Charging Station Could Hack Your Phone

When you are traveling outside and your mobile is almost low on juice, you may think that a free charging station is your life savior. But little did you know these stations can cause the biggest threat to your digital life. Your whole phone can be hacked, and you may lose your life savings if your bank info leaks out. If you get into such a situation, you just need to google “find my homework” and you will find sites where you can get help.  

Many places include free charging systems nowadays. Bus stations, train stations, airports, convention halls, etc., now have some sort of arrangements that can charge almost all types of smartphones. They include different types of cables. The hackers can get access to these stations while you connect your phone. Your phone may get attacked by malware, and unwanted access could take your data. This is a serious concern for our digital life.

The hackers can easily record whatever you are doing in your phone while it is connected to the charging cable; suppose you are taking a picture of your bank account numbers, important documents, or sensitive data, and the hackers can get hold of these. You can easily understand this is really harmful to your life.

The hackers somehow hide HDMI splitter and recorders in the charging stations. When your phone is connected to the charger, everything you are doing on your phone gets recorded without you knowing anything. Many phones are HDMI-enabled automatically for sharing information, and hackers take this opportunity (Schlesinger and Day). 

There is a security measure that you can do to prevent this type of thing. You can use your own special cable that can be found cheaply. These cables have the data pins disabled, which means your phone will get charged, but no data can be transferred (Ortiz).

Smartphones are our biggest companion in today's digital era. We should be aware that we should take proper measures to protect it. So next time when you need to use charging stations, please beware and use your own battery pack and cables to stay safe. 

collect
0
avatar
Thornie Longmuir
guide
Zupyak is the world’s largest content marketing community, with over 400 000 members and 3 million articles. Explore and get your content discovered.
Read more