Actually, Charging Your Phone in a Public USB Port Is Fine

Over the past week, hundreds of articles have been written warning the public not to charge cellphones at airport or hotel USB ports. Most of the news items cite a recent tweet from the FBI, which includes the menacing detail that “bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devices.” Avoid using free charging stations in airports, hotels or shopping centers. pic.twitter.com/9T62SYen9T — FBI Denver April 6, 2023 “FBI warns against using public phone charging stations,” CNBC wrote on Monday. I first began to suspect that this story was a hyped-up mess when I went looking for a concrete example of someone who had been “juice jacked.” On TikTok I found reports that “all citizens” should be aware of the scam, which “had been increasing.” Buffalo-based country-radio station 106.5 WYRK also implied that it was a particularly serious local issue, warning,“DO NOT Use Public USB Chargers in New York State.” But on social media, the only first-person accounts of getting #juicejacked I could find involved a vegan and a fighter getting “jacked up” on actual juice and someone who “can not confirm 100%” but had noticed “odd behavior.” Why couldn’t I find any actual people charged with or victimized by juice jacking, I asked Andy Thompson, an “offensive cybersecurity evangelist” at CyberArk, an information security company. Among details the FCC page includes is this: “There have even been reports of infected cables being given away as promotional gifts.” The spokesperson was not familiar with these reports, but directed me to a 2019 New York Times article and statement from the L.A. County DA’s office about the scam.