The latest emergency reminder of the Ministry of Public Security to be alert to the trap of shared power banks around you

Recently, the WeChat official account of the Internet Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security issued an important reminder: Beware of the trap of shared power banks around you. The police said that the shared power bank we often use may be implanted with a Trojan horse program. Once it’s plugged into a mobile phone, user’s personal information may be stolen. In particular, the following 3 categories may have security risks: 

1. Leaseable mobile power bank in the mall

2. Fully charged power bank hawked in the train station

3. A free power bank given by scanning the QR code (the biggest potential safety hazard)

What harm might the Trojan horse power bank cause to users?

There are 2 purposes of these malicious shared power banks:

1. Steal the information on the user’s mobile phone, such as photos, videos, text messages, phone numbers.

2. Remotely control the user's mobile phone to commit crimes. Once the user's mobile phone is implanted with a Trojan horse or malicious program, it can be used for a long time in the future: steal data in the user's mobile phone, download malicious programs for advertising, and take advantage of the user's mobile phone to perform other malicious activities.

For the safety of the masses, what should we pay attention to?

First, avoid renting power banks in public places. If you have to use them, try to choose the shared power banks provided by big-brand service providers, and avoid using power banks with unknown sources and niche brands, especially, those free products.

Second, when buying a power bank, you should also choose products from regular manufacturers. Don't choose products of unknown sources for the sake of affordable prices. The power bank is not only related to personal information security, but also its circuit safety hazard is also worthy of your attention.

Third, Android phone users, unless encountering special circumstances, try not to turn on the "Developer Mode", as their mobile phones will be more vulnerable to attacks.
 
Fourth, when using shared power banks and other third-party devices, users should pay attention to prompts given by the mobile phones. If a similar prompt such as "是否信任此设备(Do you trust this device)" appears on the mobile phone, you must be vigilant. Once you select "是(Yes)", the third-party device has the authority to take over your mobile phone, which can easily cause user data leakage or be implanted with Trojan horses program.

The article is sourced from: the Ministry of Public Security