Originally Posted by
Visconti
Generally, I'm one of those when it comes to tech & cyber security, paranoid by nature always defaulting to the "out of abundance of caution" stance. Is it just an urban myth that charging my devices through public ports with the old USB has a risk, however minor, of having the data unwittingly transferred? And, assuming one day we'll public Thunderbolt ports, will this risk be eliminated?
Gotta love "juice jacking". Crackjack has excellently described it and issues. USB killer devices tend to be rare as there is no advantage to burning out most devices in most scenarios. Those would likely be more for intelligence gathering application (eg you've heard stories of the military destroying any information containing devices on a vessel if they're going to lose control of it). Not sure how realistic that is but it's possible.
Now hijacking a device is much more likely. In most cases, saying no to any requests to connect will suffice, but as we've seen with the Pegasus malware, it isn't always the case. As Crackjack has mentioned, best to carry your own AC charger or power bank (or both). If you're going to insist on connecting to unknown connections, use a
(aka USB condom). That said, if you're really paranoid about this, there are always things you can do like shutting off wifi when you leave your home/office or only using your own gear to power up your device.