I have been spending more time in airports than I would like lately and have noticed that “charging stations” are springing up in public areas. There are risks to using public charging stations. The USB ports are the ones to stay away from.
When you put a USB connector directly into a port it is possible for information to be transferred to and from your phone, tablet or laptop. If hackers or other “bad actors” are able to access these ports, then it is possible that while you are charging your device the bad guys are accessing everything that you have on your device and installing some software that they can use later. The best practice is to carry a charger with you, not just the USB cable. If you plug into electricity you will be safer than if you plug your device into data.
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