iOS and Android juice jacking defenses have been trivial to bypass for years
Published on: 2025-08-06 16:00:59
All three of the ChoiceJacking techniques defeat the original Android juice-jacking mitigations. One of them also works against those defenses in Apple devices. In all three, the charger acts as a USB host to trigger the confirmation prompt on the targeted phone.
The attacks then exploit various weaknesses in the OS that allow the charger to autonomously inject “input events” that can enter text or click buttons presented in screen prompts as if the user had done so directly into the phone. In all three, the charger eventually gains two conceptual channels to the phone: (1) an input one allowing it to spoof user consent and (2) a file access connection that can steal files.
An illustration of ChoiceJacking attacks. (1) The victim device is attached to the malicious charger. (2) The charger establishes an extra input channel. (3) The charger initiates a data connection. User consent is needed to confirm it. (4) The charger uses the input channel to spoof user consent. Credit: Draschba
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