Be careful while charging mobile at railway station, big bank fraud can happen

For the readers of the Gujarati daily Capital Kranti in Gandhinagar, highly important and serious news regarding cybersecurity has come to light. According to a report by ABP Asmita, using public charging ports available at railway stations and other public places can prove costly for citizens and could result in a major fraud in bank accounts. This new threat of cyber crime is known as 'Juice Jacking', regarding which special warnings have been issued by government security agencies and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

In modern times, smartphones have become an integral part of our lives and running out of phone battery during travel is a common problem. In such situations, people resort to USB charging ports installed at railway stations or other public places. But cyber fraudsters are misusing this technology and preying on people's hard-earned money. The most alarming thing is that in this method of juice jacking, cyber fraud criminals do not make any phone calls to the victims nor do they ask for OTP, yet bank accounts are emptied.

Detailing how this technique works, the ABP Asmita report stated that inside a normal USB cable, there are five small pins or wires. One or two of these wires work to flow electricity i.e. supply power, while the remaining wires are used to transfer data. A small chip is fitted inside the back wall of public USB ports by hackers. This chip opens a secret data path or route between the phone and the hackers' system.

When any unaware person plugs their phone into this type of tampered public USB port, a dangerous spyware gets installed in the background of the phone without the user's knowledge. This malware is so lethal that it can record the phone's screen. In addition, it captures all key-strokes including UPI pins or net banking passwords, and forwards OTP messages coming from the bank directly to the hackers.

To protect against this serious risk, security experts have advised citizens to take some important precautions. According to the ABP Asmita report, users should avoid using USB ports and dangling cables available at public places. Instead, using one's own charger adapter in normal three-pin or two-pin electrical sockets is the safest option.

If under any circumstances using a public USB port becomes inevitable, users should switch off the phone completely while charging or select only the 'Charge Only' option in the pop-up menu appearing on the screen. By mistake, the 'File Transfer' option should not be selected, so that data can be prevented from falling into the hands of hackers.