iOS may be susceptible to hacking via a malicious charger says a Black Hat briefing by Billy Lau, Yeongjin Jang and Chengyu Song. This approach uses a charger that looks like a standard charger, but has malicious software on it. When an iOS device is plugged into the charger, an attacker can bypass iOS defense mechanisms and compromise a device within one minute of it being plugged in. The team built a prototype charger using a BeagleBoard and was able to demonstrate how easy it is to build a malicious charger, even on a limited budget. This attack affected any current-generation Apple device running the latest version of iOS and did not require the targeted device to be jailbroken.
