Cyber weapons have been "inadvertently" created by powerful and severely flawed chargers.
EV Vulnerabilities
According to Pen Test Partners, smart home chargers and electric car charging stations are highly vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Researchers tested six home charger brands as well as several public charging networks. They found some serious flaws in many of them, which is indicative of a serious breach in consumer protection regulations.
Hijacking Chargers
Home chargers, which allow users to remotely monitor the condition of their vehicle via an app, can cause problems.
Pen Test Partners blog says that we discovered vulnerabilities that allowed account hijacking of millions of smart electric vehicle chargers.
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The fortunately white-hat hackers were able remote override the user functions and control charging from a distance.
Even more disturbing was the fact that the researchers were able backdoor their way into EV owner's entire home networks, giving them access to other devices.
Cost cutting
Raspberry Pi modules are cheap off-the shelf single-board computers that have been used in some home charger brands.
The Pi is a great device, but it's not appropriate for commercial use in public places, as it is difficult to secure against data recovery, researchers stated.
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The team discovered that public chargers can be remotely turned on and off by the team. This could make the network's cybersecurity flaws into a cyber weapon that could be used to cause widespread power outages.
This worrying trend is bound to lead to consumer information being stolen and, at worst, to structural problems. Regulators have the ability to prevent this from happening in the future.
READ MORE: Electric vehicle charging security is a joke [The Next Web]
More about EV charging: Electric cars have one problem: They keep lighting people's houses on fire.
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