When travelling abroad, many of us will rely on public Wifi, whether from a hotel, shopping mall or the restaurant you are enjoying that very expensive ethically sourced cup of coffee from the foothills of some mountain, whose beans that were ingested by a baby panda.
The problem with many of these public Wifi hotspots is that they can be used to hack your credentials, so we strongly suggest not using them to do banking or login to services that require password access.
It is not always possible to wait till you get back to your hotel or accommodation provider to make use of their probably more secure connection. That’s where have a local sim loaded with a data bundle provides you far greater security and peace of mind when travelling abroad.
A worrying development recently revealed at DEF CON, Security conference in August 2019, was the upcoming availability of fake lightning cables:
“Mike Grover, who goes by the pseudonym MG, designed the “O.MG cable” to look and function exactly like a legitimate Lightning cable made by Apple—but they are modified with hardware (including a very tiny wireless access point) that allows a hacker to remotely run various scripts and commands and hijack a targeted device.”*
So next time you run out of battery power and hand your phone over to the barmen or waiter to charge your phone, think twice. Ideally when travelling always use your own cables and if you are forever running out of battery make sure to pack an airline friendly power bank (those that are 10 000mAh or less) to take on your adventures.
And if you ever get stuck without a cable on your travels, make sure you buy an original or at least a certified manufacturer-approved cable. For accessories certified by Apple, they come with an MFI (Made for iPhone) logo, the MFI chips costs around $5 so if the cable you buying is cheaper than that, it’s most likely a fake. You can check which manufacturers are Apple approved by clicking here.
A lot goes into planning the perfect trip, make sure you have your mobile security bases covered before your next adventure. Explore your world with us.
*Sourced from Gizmodo
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