As crazy as it sounds, the USB Condom, like its human counterpart, is here to protect against viruses. Not so much venereal diseases, but trojans, rootkits, FBI viruses, and more.
The USB Condom was specifically created in response to the many iPhone support viruses and hacks that result from the phone using the USB port as a point of entry. You may think you’re using an airport charging station to boost up your iPhone battery, but instead, you’ll get “juice jacked.” That term means you’ve just been targeted for a virus or hack that will lead to stealing your data. This can happen because when you charge your phone, it goes into data transfer mode. With this status, it is easy to pass along a bug to steal info.
The USB Condom goes a step ahead to guard against juice jacking by blocking the USB connectors data pins. These pins are used by the hackers to transfer the infection to the phone. However, it still leaves the power pins free to perform the charging of the phone.
I think it’s crazy that we have to protect our phones at this level, but if there’s an iPhone virus to remove or a smartphone hacker to watch out for, we have to use safeguards against them.
