Juice Jacking: FCC guidance and a Tale from the Spy Capital

Vienna is known as the 'spying capital of the world.’ Ever hear of juice jacking? The FCC thinks you should know about it. and so do I.

Quick story, last year on a train from Vienna to Budapest another couple sat down next to my family in the cozy compartment that we had almost taken over.

After they got settled and had a little verbal dispute with each other, the women left and the man ( in broken english) asked me if I had a charging cable. I said "sorry but it's in the bags." I looked up at the mountain of luggage and shook my head like, no...not going to happen. He said, "can you pull it out I need it." I said, "I can't, sorry." A mumbled curse and he looked out the window. I wanted to help the man and it was probably harmless...but maybe not.

Be careful for your phone and computer with any external chargers, USBs, data sticks, cables, battery packs, external drives, and places you plug your phone in to charge. Like most things: quality matters, vigilance matters, supply chain (who had it and where it came from) matters.

Juice jacking involves putting malware into the equipment above thorguh a A specially designed cable or hidden circuitry which injects malicious code (malware) into the device as soon as it's plugged in. From there the attacker could steal data or install malware without your knowledge.

-Some great tips from the Federal Communications Commission in the link below.

-SecurityWeek solid. 2 Factor Authentification key.

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Shawn Ryan had a great podcast with Mike Grover on the topic Jan 2025. On SRS podcast.

https://www.fcc.gov/juice-jacking-tips-to-avoid-it

Cheers and good luck,

B