Free Republic

In a warning issued this week, the New York Department of State’s Division of Consumer Protection encouraged travelers to protect themselves against so-called “juice jacking” on public charging stations. Officials said thieves can place hidden skimming devices inside USB ports on public cell phone charging kiosks at airports, hotels, and other public locations. “Unfortunately, nefarious scammers are always at work finding new ways to target unsuspecting consumers and steal their personal information,” New York Secretary of State Robert Rodriguez said in a statement. If you need to charge your phone or any device while traveling, it’s important to pay attention...

Los Angeles District Attorney has warned travelers to avoid charging their smartphones and other devices using public USB power charging stations as they may contain dangerous malware. USB was designed to transfer both power and data and security researchers as well as cybercriminals have learned how to use USB connections to deliver malicious payloads to users who thought they were merely charging their devices. Over the past few years, several proofs of concepts were created with the most notorious being Mactans, which was unveiled at the Black Hat security conference back in 2013. While the device may look like an...