Research funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) is focusing on the cybersecurity picture for EV charging infrastructure.
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratory have been studying vulnerabilities in charging infrastructure for the past four years alongside other federal facilities, according to a recently published and Sandia press release. a piece of paper with their findings.
“Electric vehicle charging infrastructure has a number of vulnerabilities, from stealing credit card information – like at gas pumps or regular ATMs – to using cloud servers to hijack the entire electric vehicle charging network,” the statement said.
Nissan Ariya 2023 at EVgo . charging station
The researchers looked at different types of interfaces, including vehicle-to-charger connectivity, wireless communication, cloud services, and charger maintenance ports for both AC and DC chargers.
According to the report, they found vulnerabilities for each type of interface, including the ability for hackers to intercept communication between the vehicle and the charger from a distance of more than 50 yards. Argonne National Laboratory researchers found that not all chargers have proper firewalls to block intrusions, while Idaho National Laboratory researchers found found that some systems are vulnerable to malicious firmware updates. Charger maintenance ports can also allow system reconfiguration, allowing hackers to access the entire charging network from a single device.
Software vulnerabilities in some chargers have shown that they can be hacked, but so far hacking is limited to annoying stunts. According to the researchers, the power grid could also be affected by vulnerabilities in charging stations, but it would be very difficult for hackers to carry out an attack.
Tesla Charger (Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.)
To prevent that, the researchers are recommending increased security measures, such as stronger authentication and authorization protocols for electric vehicle drivers using charging stations, as well as anti-counterfeiting of hardware. hard.
EV charging network security has been discussed frequently, but with few definite conclusions. The White House’s Office of the Director of National Networks held a forum early last month on the subject. Otherwise, many of charger security report until now has been made by companies with some financial interest like a security service for sale.
Tesla has had many years Challenge hackers to find the problem with your vehicles. That’s not the approach that hardware or charging network manufacturers have taken.
