You Might Want To Rethink Doing This At The Airport

This probably sounds familiar to you. Rather than twiddle your thumbs as you wait for your already late arriving flight to be cleaned, you pass the time on your phone. But now the battery is running low, so you decide to just plug into one of those handy USB charging stations.  Unfortunately, experts would rather you didn’t. That’s because those devices could be hacked by cybercriminals to steal your information.

“Plugging into a public USB port is kind of like finding a toothbrush on the side of the road and deciding to stick it in your mouth,” says Caleb Barlow, vice-president of X-Force Threat Intelligence at IBM Security.

Barlow instead recommends bringing your own power brick and plugging into an outlet or using a portable rechargeable battery when in public places.