Apple’s Lightning cable is one of the most ubiquitous accessories on the planet. First introduced in 2012 with the release of the iPhone 5, it’s since been included with every iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad (with the exception of 2018’s iPad Pros). It’s shipped on billions of devices.

But even though every Apple gadget that requires a Lightning cable comes with one, many of us lose them, replace them, or buy extras. Many times we also forget our cables at home, leading us to ask a friend—or even a stranger—if we can borrow one to revive a dead phone. This is never more evident than at an airport or a major conference. You’re sure to run into someone asking if they have a spare Lightning cable they can use for a moment.

But from now on, asking a stranger to borrow a Lightning cable, or accepting an offer by a stranger to give you one, is the last thing you’ll want to do if you’re scrupulous about protecting your data. That’s because a hacker has created the first Lightning cable that, when plugged into your Mac or PC, will allow someone to remotely take over your computer. Worse, this hacked Lightning cable, called the O.MG Cable, isn’t a bespoke one-off. It’s being mass-produced in factories so anyone can buy and use them to target your data.

The stuff of security nightmares

The O.MG Cable was first reported by Motherboard’s Joseph Cox when the security researcher who created it, a person known as “MG,” first demoed his handmade prototype at the Def Con hacking conference last summer. The O.MG Cable looks like an ordinary Apple-made Lightning cable and works exactly the same—it will charge a device and transfer data to and from the device just like an authentic Lightning cable.

However, the O.MG Cable also contains a built-in wireless hotspot. This allows attackers to remotely run commands on the Mac or Windows PC the cable is plugged into, which allows them to do, well, pretty much whatever they want—including reading or even deleting your data. After MG demoed the prototype cable to Motherboard’s Cox, he told the reporter, “It’s like being able to sit at the keyboard and mouse of the victim but without actually being there.” He also said that the cable supports both hackers who are within Wi-Fi range and ones who might be tapping into its connection over the internet. (Using the cable to charge your iPhone by plugging it into the wall should theoretically be safe, since it’s your Mac or PC that’s vulnerable to attack.)

The good news at the time was that the O.MG cable needed to be handmade and was relatively expensive—$200 a pop. But now MG says that he’s found a way to mass-produce the cable in a factory, which will allow thousands of them to roll off an assembly line.