FBI warns people to avoid public USB chargers

[Retro]

Cuz they can be rigged with malware to hack your smartphone that's why. However, there's a very simple solution to this: buy a very small and very cheap USB adapter that connects the power lines only, no data lines. Of course, this doesn't protect against a rogue power supply behind that charging point from damaging or destroying your phone completely. The article doesn't mention any of this though, so not very good journalism there.

I connected my iPhone to a particular charging point once (don't worry, no risk of hacking) and then never again: the iPhone got really hot and the battery charged up in record time. This clearly meant that the voltage on that USB port was too high* as I've never seen this happen when connecting to a PC, or a charger plugged into the mains.

FBI warns people to avoid public USB chargers

Charging phones could leave with them software that monitors their users, law enforcement warns

uk.finance.yahoo.com

*Should be 5V +/- a small tolerance, but this must have been significantly more. I'd have liked to measure it, but I didn't have a voltmeter to connect to it.

 

[Retro]

Here's a rather better article on this subject:

6 ways to avoid ‘juice jacking’ at public iPhone charging stations

 

[Uncrowned]

It is basically coming down to just not using anything in public areas that connect to your phone or other devices. I actually have a battery backup in all of my bags just in case.

 

[Tiffany]

Good to know, thanks @Retro ....and as I was just posting, @Uncrowned mentioned the battery backup. I have one too and it's pink.

 

[aussiefooty]

These are used widely in aussie shopping centres.
They come with a big warning that users must be responsible for anti virus software on their devices.

 

[eidairman1]

Never trusted them, just another skimmer