Can portable chargers steal your privacy?

So your mobile phone is running out of power. You reach out for a portable charger, and connect it to your phone with a USB cable. You think it is charging your phone and nothing more. You may be wrong.

A portable charger, if one makes some changes to its components, can pose a threat to private data on your phone, China Central Television (CCTV) reports.

In a video, a mobile device engineer named Gao Xuefeng shows how a modified portable charger downloads such data as videos, photos and text messages from a mobile phone while being connected.

Gao told CCTV that such modified chargers, when connected to a smartphone, would sometimes trigger a pop-up message on the mobile phone screen asking for authorization. If the user authorizes it, the charger would automatically start downloading.

Gao says such invasion of privacy has become quite common.

Although he acknowledges that most of the portable chargers on the market are still considered safe, Gao suggests mobile phone users avoid USB-based chargers as much as possible.