According to the FBI, public phone chargers are bad news, but that's good advice.
Beware of public Wi-Fi and charging stations
It’s tempting to take advantage of free public Wi-Fi and public phone charging stations when you’re out and about. But the risks of both are so real and so dire that it’s just not worth it. It’s become such a problem that the FBI just issued a warning about charging stations, thanks to an exploit called “juice jacking.” The good news is that once you’re aware of the problem, it’s easy to protect yourself.
“Juice jacking is when a malicious actor uses public USB ports to introduce malware or monitoring applications onto a user’s device,” Michael Harris, an IT professional at Tulane University who has worked with law enforcement, told Lifewire via email. “People should practice good basic cybersecurity hygiene and bring their own wall charger or battery charger if they’re traveling and need to charge instead of using public charging stations.”
Our phones all charge via USB. Even the iPhone’s Lightning cable is just USB with a fancy connector on one end. And as we know, USB is used for both power and data. When we charge our phones, we are only interested in the power part. But bad guys are interested in the data and have come up with some clever ways to get it.
