A woman recently found that her cell phone had automatically logged onto WeChat and entered a number of English words in the dialog box while it was charging, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
A screenshot provided by the resident, surnamed Wu, showed the words entered were “You’redov do And gSZ,” the report said. Feeling scared after the words appeared, she disconnected the USB cable and the operation subsequently stopped.
Wu said that she forgot where the charger had come from and that it was not an original iPhone accessory. However, the USB cable was the original that came with the smartphone. According to her, the situation had happened before but she didn’t pay much attention until she read a report of a similar case on Qianjiang Evening News.
The Qianjiang report said that a woman surnamed Yang in Zhejiang Province found that her iPhone had automatically operated itself while it was charging and nearly completed a reservation for a hotel suite that cost 10,000 yuan (US$1,449) on a mobile app.
Yang immediately pulled the USB cable out before the phone proceeded to the payment page.
She added that the phone had once logged onto a reading app and entered some comments on the works of Japanese writer Higashino Keigo. The screenshots showed that the comments included Chinese characters and random English letters.
Many netizens said it was caused by a shoddy charger, which would cause an unstable current, leakage of electricity and even screen jumping.
However, it was hardly convincing that Yang’s phone could select an app and book a hotel suite if the situation was simply caused by an unstable current.
According to an unidentified industry insider who has been working on cell phone maintenance for many years, it is possible to hack a phone using fake chargers and USB cables, but screen jumping could also explain the situation.