It usually happens to us, for one reason or another, we have not been able to charge the laptop or mobile at home and we suddenly find that we need to find a plug or at least a USB port to charge it. However, you must be careful when connecting your device and without worrying about it, we have to inform you that there is a certain level of danger.
The dangers of connecting your laptop to a public USB to charge it
The reason for this is simple, and it may sound like a conspiracy to you and, therefore, worthy of a silver cap, but it is important to bear in mind that there are more and more laptops that use the USB-C port to charge and we must have Keep in mind that this interface is not only used for energy transfer and in the same way that you can connect an external storage unit to your PC and see its information, the same thing can happen in the opposite case and this is not something that requires extremely expensive hardware, what’s more, it can be done even with a Rasbperry Pi or a low-cost MiniPC.
Obviously, unless the owner of your favorite cafeteria where you go to relax with your PC is a bad person, they have forced it or a hopeless gossip, obviously they are not going to add intermediate hardware to snort our PC through from the USB charging ports. However, things change in places such as airports, train stations and other places controlled by a State, where the treatment of citizens’ information in order to discover incriminating elements for any crime is important for the security of each country, but this It does not happen only in dictatorships, but also in first world countries that theoretically enjoy full democracy.
In reality, any device connected to a charging port can be tracked and retrieved. This being the reason why the EU is obsessed with forcing the USB-C charging port on all devices with the excuse of accumulated electronic waste.
How are USB charging stations modified to steal data?
In theory, when there is a transfer of information from one system to another, the user should be notified. Unfortunately, there are methods that make this never happen and that data can be stolen from a PC in a subtle way without the PC knowing. The problem with all this is that the operating system places too much trust in the USB port and believes its lies. Not surprisingly, the peripheral at the other end can tell you that it is of one type, for example: a keyboard, and operate as another perfectly, and that is one of the biggest sources for what is usually called juice jackingsomething that anyone can do and that has the following particularities:
- They can access information in your user folders, as well as your contact list and even sensitive financial information.
- One of the capabilities is to install very light applications, without a graphical interface or text that will remain on your PC always active and will continue sending information as soon as you connect to the Internet.
- They can record keystrokes in order to discover password.
The way they do it is by using modified USB cables, so don’t trust any public charging port that comes with such a cable. Our advice to all this? Take a PowerBank with you in your suitcase in case you run out of battery in your laptop.
