Travel by Air

Airport terminal seating

What do you do on your layovers at the airport? Do you connect your phone, laptop, and tablet into the wall chargers and rest your eyes while your devices charge or browse the internet?

🛑 Stop the frantic search for an outlet or a random charger from someone who you don’t even know. Why? Because you may be the next victim of cybercrime. Cyber criminals prey on the frantic parents searching for an outlet or charger for their child’s phone or tablet and will offer you a charger in a ❤️ beat. Not out of kindness but rather to embed something malicious in the tablet and/or phone. 📱

Scenario Time Constraints

You are a family of 5️⃣. You and your husband, a teenage son and daughter and an infant are on your way to Hawaii for spring break. Relaxing in your seat 💺 waiting to land at the next airport for another connection. Time is limited at this airport and there’s 52 minutes before departure. Once at the airport you notice your infant needs to be changed and your messages from work have been flooding in (you are on vacation, right). You notice that you need to charge your phone because you are at 20% and forgot to bring your power bank. You hand your phone 📱 to your teenage daughter to charge while you take care of your infant. Time is of the essence. Your teenage daughter locates a row of USB ports and outlets labeled “free charging” and plug in your device. Despite your efforts of training everyone in the family, the damage is done.

Dangers ⚠️

Juicing (this is not a vegetable or fruit mixture).

• Juice jacking is how cyber criminals steal data from your devices via USB ports.

  • Good bye 👋 sensitive data like contacts, emails, and even payment information.

Malware injection.

• The USB port may be compromised and could install spyware or ransomware on your device.

  • Spyware: malicious software designed to spy (secretly monitor) and collect information from your device without consent.

  • Ransomware: type of malware that encrypts or locks 🔒 your device until the cyber criminal receives money (ransom).

Free WiFi Beware

• This exposes your login credentials,banking information, and personal information.

Leaving Devices Unattended

• In chaotic situations, do not leave your devices unattended while charging. This makes them an easy target 🎯 for theft.

Tips

Juicing

• Use your own chargers and a wall outlet instead of public USB ports

• Carry a USB data blocker.

• Use a portable power bank.

Airport WiFi

• Don’t access your bank accounts or work systems on public WiFi.

• Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN)

• Turn off auto-connect for WiFi.

• Enable two-factor authentication

• Forget the network after use.

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