While the risk is overblown, it exists. But it's easy to protect yourself.

The short answer is that it's reasonably safe to use public USB charging stations at airports and elsewhere. While US agencies, including the FBI and Transportation Security Administration (TSA), have warned against doing so, security researchers say the threat is overblown.

"When you're at an airport do not plug your phone directly into a USB port," the TSA warned in a March 2025 Facebook post. "Bring your TSA-compliant power brick or battery pack and plug in there." The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published its own warning about these "juice-jacking" (also called "port-jacking") attacks, but subsequently withdrew it once tech experts disputed the extent of the threat. In 2019, the Los Angeles County district attorney warned about the threat, but subsequently confirmed it had no cases on its books.

Security pros say that while the threat is real in principle because proof-of-concept demonstrations exist, there are no credible reports of any successful attacks taking place. That doesn't mean the threat is non-existent — it's one among a multitude of potential attacks. To keep it that way, you should always take steps to secure your device.

The risk of juice-jacking is inherent to the USB standard, which carries both data and power along a single cable on separate internal pins. Proof-of-concept tests have shown attackers could potentially modify public USB charging points, making them connect to the data pins in your USB cable to install malware or steal data.

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