“Juice Jacking” Returns to the News but Still Hasn’t Happened

ByEmily Dolloff

Much has been made in the media about a recent FBI warning about “juice jacking,” the theoretical act of installing malware on or stealing data from an iPhone connected to a public charging station. Researchers first demonstrated juice jacking in 2011 at the Defcon security conference.

There’s no harm in following the FBI’s advice, but why raise the topic now? When questioned by the fact-checking site Snopes, the Denver office of the FBI said it was a standard public-service announcement tweet.

More importantly, there’s no indication that there’s any reason to worry. The security site Krebs On Security quoted one of the original juice jacking researchers as saying that he isn’t aware of any public accounts of a juice jacking kiosk existing in a public place outside of a security conference.

Making the risk of juice jacking even less concerning are security changes that Apple has made to iOS and iPadOS. Now, when you connect a device to a USB charger or device that does anything beyond providing power, you’ll see a prompt asking if you trust it. Given that there are no documented instances of juice jacking outside of a demonstration, it’s highly improbable that you’d get such a prompt when connecting to a public charging station, but if that were to happen, tap Don’t Trust and unplug your device immediately.

To block all possibility of juice jacking, you could:

  • Bring your own USB charger and plug it into a standard wall outlet.
  • Charge your iPhone from a battery pack and recharge the battery from a public charger.
  • Use a public wireless Qi charger. No cables, no worries.
  • Connect a USB data blocker to the end of your charging cable when using a public charger.
  • Rely on a special USB cable that can only charge, not carry data.

But honestly, just as with warnings about poisoned Halloween candy, these juice-jacking warnings don’t seem to be based on any documented instances. Our take? It’s sensible to bring a USB charger when traveling and carry a battery pack as a backup, but there’s no reason to worry about security when using a public charger. Amusingly, while we were editing this article, Ars Technica published a lengthy piece expanding on everything we’ve just said.

(Featured image by iStock.com/ClaireLucia)

Social Media: Juice jacking—malware installation or data theft after you plug a phone into a public charger—is in the news again. While the recommended precautions aren’t onerous, there are no documented instances of juice jacking happening in the wild.

Similar Posts

  • Keyboard Shortcuts

    I got my start in using computers with CPM operating system and keyboard shortcuts were present there. I used them all the time so they come as second nature to me. But as I go out and talk with customers and help them with their Macs, I am surprised by the number of people that do not know that most of the things you can do with your mouse by clicking on a menu item can be done faster with keyboard shortcuts.

    The first thing to learn about shortcuts are the symbols that are used to show these keys.

    Command ⌘
    Shift ⇧
    Option ⌥
    Control ⌃
    Caps Lock ⇪
    Fn

    These work for your Mac Keyboard but if you are using a keyboard made for a Windows machine you need to substitute the Windows logo for the Command key and the Alt key for the option key. When you look at a menu in almost any application you will find the common commands for all these symbols next to them to indicate the keyboard shortcut. Here are some common ones:

    Command-X **Cut** Remove the selected item
    Command-C **Copy** the selected item
    Command-V **Paste** the contents
    Command-Z **Undo** the previous command
    Command-A **Select all** items
    Command-F **Find** open a Find window
    Command-G **Find Again** Find the next occurrence of the item previously found
    Command-H **Hide** the windows of the front app.
    Command-M **Minimize** the front window to the dock
    Command-M **New** Open a new document or window
    Command-P **Print** the current document

    Command-Space bar **Spotlight** show or hide the spotlight search field
    Command-Tab **Switch apps** switch to the next most recently used app
    Command-shift-3 **Screenshot** take a screenshot of the entire screen

    As you can see, there are endless keyboard shortcuts to use, and these are only a small fraction of what you can do with “**keyboard shortcuts.**”:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 So the next time you find yourself wondering what you can do if your mouse suddenly stops working or if your just looking for a more efficient way to do something, keyboard shortcuts might just be what your looking for!

  • Macbooks and Macbook Air Upgraded

    Apple announced some changes to the 12-inch MacBook and 13-inch MacBook Air this week. Let’s talk about the MacBook Air first. Apple discontinued the 13-inch MacBook Air models that had 4GB of RAM and made them sport 8GB. There were no other changes to this model but the additional RAM comes at no additional cost as Apple doubled the RAM but kept the price the same at $999 for the 128GB SSD unit and $1299 for the 256GB SSD.

    With just this minor update to the MacBook Air we can speculate that perhaps this unit is on its way out within the next year. The MacBook Air does not have the Retina display nor does it support the latest in Intel mobile processors. On the other hand, it is Apple’s best selling laptop.

    The changes to the MacBook were more significant. They added a Rose Gold (er…pink) color which might actually be a nice option for some. More importantly, Apple went to the new sixth-generation dual-core Intel Core M processors which run at clock speeds up to 1.3 gigahertz, with Turbo Boost up to 3.1 gigahertz. The revamped notebooks also feature faster 1866 megahertz memory.

    This new processor yields increases in performance from 15-20% in initial testing. With the Intel HD Graphics 515, the new MacBook has about 25 percent faster graphics performance. Speed has also been enhance with new, faster PCIe-based flash storage.

    The lower power requirements and a slightly larger battery has also improved battery life, with the Apple claiming the new MacBook offers up to 10 hours of wireless surfing and up to 11 hours of movie watching.

    While some were expecting additional ports or an improved FaceTime camera, these features did not make the cut.

    We should have all the models in stock next week as well as some great deals on the newly discontinued models.