A modern day dilemma. Your phone is running out of battery but you will be on the train for the next few hours. And you forgot your charger. A free charging station in the railway station is here to save your phone – but can you trust it?
Devices using the Android operating system are at risk when users charge them at a public charging station, an investigation by the Beijing Evening News has found.
To use the charging station you must first download an application, and when you agree to do so you have to grant access permissions that potentially allow hackers to review all the information in your phone, including your mobile banking information.
A charging station in Beijing West Railway Station provides a high speed charging service only after users enable the USB debugging mode – a function which allows developers to pull and send files to an Android phone - and download recommended applications.
Keeping the USB debugging mode turned off is one of the most important ways to maintain security on an Android phone, but many users are unaware of the significance of a function which can be turned on or off with a simple swipe.
Operators of public charging stations are authorized to recommend new applications and ask users to make purchases when the USB debugging mode is enabled. The phone is extremely vulnerable during this period, and hackers may invade the mobile system and install a virus without any notification.
The free charging stations also provide a normal charging service without any additional requirements, but the speed is much lower, with only a one percent power boost per 15 minutes.
Passengers commonly accept the requirement to download additional apps and change phone settings. “It is not a big deal… I can remove applications later on,” said one anonymous passenger in an interview with the Beijing Evening News.
And station operators can make profits of over 60,000 yuan (9,000 US dollars) per day from the downloading of applications through the charging station. Officer Hu, from the corporation that owns the charging station, refused to answer the question when the Beijing Evening News asked if it is necessary for users to turn on the USB debugging mode before charging their phones.
