Freely for sale on Amazon's marketplace, and plenty of other online stores, are USB and iPhone cables that can be used to listen to your phone calls and track your location.
When these cables are connected to a power source they can use a SIM card to connect to a mobile network. The hardware is unsophisticated but can send both audio and very coarse location data to a third-party...A more worrying feature is the ability of the cable to detect sound over a certain threshold and then call a pre-programmed number. Once it has done this is relays the sound near it, be that a phone call or conversation, and allows a third-party to listen in.
Not only are there cables that do this, there are also USB power adaptors for your wall outlet that have the same SIM functionality.
Cables and power adapters like this should also be something of a worry to firms that need their security too, they may well not be noticed by security checks and could be responsible for a lot of sensitive information walking out the front door. more
Best Practice: Include the inspection of cables and charging blocks as part of your TSCM inspections.
