What is a USB Condom?

The Man in the Pub

Let's imagine you're in a bar.

Your phone has hit 3% battery and you're beginning to panic. You need your phone to pay for things, to get home in a taxi, and to let your family know your safe. Running out of charge is a bit of a nightmare, we've all been there.

Suddenly, a stranger approaches you, opens his laptop and says "I can charge your phone for you", just plug it into my laptop here, and offers you a cable to do it.

Would you do it?

The answer you give here ** should ** be no.

You have no idea what is on that laptop, what it's doing, or what it's going to do to your phone. It could be stealing your data, it could be installing malware, it could be doing anything. You don't know this person, where he's come from or what he's doing. It's very possible he's just a nice genuine person, but it's also possible that he's got a nefarious motive.

Now, this may seem like a weird scenario, but millions of people do essentially the same thing every day due to the rise of USB ports in electric sockets dotted all over pubs, bars, hotels and the like.

It's important to rememeber that every time you plug your phone into a USB port, you're giving it access to your phone. It can read data from it, it can write data to it, it can do anything it wants to it. When you check into your hotel, you're plugging your phone over night into something that could be stealing your identity, or installing malware on your phone.