A USB cable can steal your data (Phone/PC…)

Did you know that a what seems to be a regular USB charging cable or any other kind of USB cable actually may contain a super tiny computer that can infect your device.
For example your phone or computer with anything the attacker/hacker want.

The computer inside the malicious USB cable can also create a WIFI network so the attacker/hacker can connect directly to your device.

These malicious USB cables look identical to a regular USB cable.
So don’t borrow or buy cables from people or sellers that you cant trust.

Examples of that the hacker can do

* The hacker can for example create a WIFI network.
* Access files on your phone/computer.
* Create sync accounts. For example to steal data from iCloud.
* Give the hacker full keyboard access.
* Send SMS messages.
* Share your whole hard drives over the network.
* Run scripts, like Powershell scripts.
* Turn on your webcam and take photos.
* Run a keylogger so they can see anything you write.
* And the list goes on…

Antivirus

Antivirus scanners can not detect a malicious USB cable because there is no virus to detect.
Malicious USB commands reach directly into your USB driver stack, exploiting your device directly.

But you should always have a active antivirus software running on your computer anyway.
Avira is free for PC, Mac, Android and iOS. Read more about Avira here.

I think you can block some of the attacks on a phone or computer by setting up your device so that they don’t share any data by default and don’t do anything automatically when a USB have been connected.