You May Get Hacked By Charging Your Phone Through A Computer

You May Get Hacked By Charging Your Phone Through A Computer

If you connect your mobile device to a computer by using a USB cable that could make you vulnerable to hackers.

The experts at Kaspersky Lab experienced a multiplicity of smartphones with Android and iOS operating systems to realise what data is transferred when the phone is connected to a Mac or PC and then they found that a whole slide of the data gets transferred to the computer while the two devices are connected.

Kaspersky said, “Using just a regular PC and a standard micro USB cable, armed with a set of special commands, Kaspersky experts were able to re-flash a smartphone and silently install a root application on it. This leads to a total compromise of the smartphone, even though no malware was used.”

The device name, type, manufacturer, serial number, operating system information, firmware information, file system/file list as well as the electronic chip ID is all shared throughout the connection of the device to the computer. This transfer makes it easy for hackers to develop the supposedly safe data exchange between the smartphone as well as the computer.

Alexey Komarov who is the researcher at Kaspersky Lab warns that “The security risks here are obvious: if you're a regular user you can be tracked through your device IDs; your phone could be silently packed with anything from adware to ransomware.”

And also added that "And you don't even have to be highly-skilled in order to perform such attacks, all the information you need can easily be found on the Internet."

Kaspersky Lab recommends securing yourself by only using the faithful USB charging points in spite of computers and keep your mobile phone safe with a password or fingerprint recognition but be sure that it would not unlock it while charging then use the encryption technologies and secure the containers to defend the data; and install antivirus software which can distinguish the malware even if a charging susceptibility is used.

If you are concerned about getting hacked in this way then Kaspersky Lab says that there are several ways to secure yourself:

• You should use only trusted USB charging points to charge your device.
• Secure your mobile phone with a password or with another method such as fingerprint recognition but do not unlock it when it is in charging.
• Use the encryption technologies and protect the containers to secure the data.
• Install several kind of antivirus software which is capable of identifying the malware even if a "charging" vulnerability is used.