Be careful of this everyday gesture with your smartphone which could prove very dangerous for your personal data

Charger son téléphone dans les lieux publics, une mauvaise idée ? MAXPPP – Jan Schmidt-Whitley/Le Pictorium

When your phone is plugged into a charging station, it can be hacked, according to the FBI.

If you are used to recharging your smartphone on the train, in a café or even in a shopping center or an airport, this gesture can be quite risky for the protection of your personal data. In any case, this is what the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) indicates, relayed by 60 million consumers. The American agency suspects some of these systems of being hacked.

So, the FBI recommends avoiding these public charging stations, no matter where they are located, says RMC Conso. "Hackers are using public USB ports to introduce malware and surveillance software onto devices", the agency said. This method of hacking using electrical energy is called "juice jacking".

Resold data

In short, hackers tamper with USB ports by integrating software that compromises all the data on your smartphone. So, when you plug into one of these ports hacked, malware may enter your phone. And hackers can lock the device and export personal data, including passwords. This vacuumed information can even be resold by hackers, indicates RMC Conso.

"This threat is very difficult to spot and quantify. In any case, if after connecting your phone to a public charging station a window appears to install or update software, it is better to unplug immediately. It may, in fact, be an attempted digital break-in", explains Jean-Jacques Latour, cybersecurity director for Cybermalveillance, at 60 million consumers.