Slug: what-is-juice-jacking
If you've ever plugged your phone into a charging kiosk at an airport, hotel, or conference center, you've used an attack surface.
Juice jacking is the practice of using a compromised USB port — or a tampered cable — to exfiltrate data or install malware on a device while it charges. The USB standard carries both power and data over the same connector. That's convenient. It's also a problem.
The FBI has warned about it. So has the FCC. Public USB ports are not a safe charging option if you care about what's on your device.
"But I use a data-blocking cable."
Data-blocking cables — sometimes called "USB condoms" — are designed to carry power only, with the data lines (D+ and D−) physically removed or disconnected. In theory, no data path means no attack vector.
The problem: most data-blocking cables ask you to trust them. There's no way to verify, from the outside, that the data lines are actually absent. You're taking the manufacturer's word for it. For a cable you bought online, from a supply chain you don't control, that's a meaningful assumption.
What "verifiable" actually means
A verifiable power-only cable is one whose construction can be confirmed — not just claimed. That means the absence of data conductors is something a third party can check, not just something printed on the packaging.
This is the design principle behind PowerVerify. No D+ or D− lines. No data path. And every charging session produces a signed, tamper-evident record — hash-chained and verifiable by anyone, without contacting us or going online.
It's the difference between "trust us" and "check for yourself."
Who should care
- IT and security teams issuing cables to staff who travel
- Journalists and field researchers working in high-risk environments
- Anyone who uses public charging infrastructure regularly
- Organizations with device security policies that currently have no answer for charging
The bottom line
Juice jacking is a real threat with a straightforward mitigation: don't use untrusted USB ports, and if you must charge, use a cable you can verify. Not one you have to trust.