The latest research on electric vehicle charging stations reveals many flaws and outdated systems, leaving the door open to hackers.
The transition to the electric car must imperatively be accompanied by network protection, warn cybersecurity experts. In which case, criminals will be able to steal all vehicle data. Researchers from the Saiflow company pointed to the simplicity of the computer systems behind vehicle chargers in a report, published on January 26, 2023 and spotted by Dark Reading on March 3. Most equipment still runs on outdated versions of the Linux operating system.
The situation would be all the more dangerous as vulnerabilities have been detected directly in the OCPP protocol (Open Charge Point Protocol) created for the interoperability of charging stations. This standard guarantees communication between a central system and the charging stations, and makes it possible, for example, to work on different charging stations simultaneously. However, flaws would allow hackers to launch denial of service attacks to disrupt the network or simply steal information from the facilities.
These warnings are not futuristic, since operations have already been carried out against terminals: in March 2022, hacktivists from Anonymous hacked into a vehicle charging station in Moscow, the hackers broadcast ” Glory to Ukraine and insults against Putin on the facilities.
The stations are not the only entry points for an infiltration, since the pirates can perfectly attack a connected house where the vehicle would be charged.
A large terminal installation plan
Opening a vehicle, stealing information about the machine, this is nothing new. Ethical hackers test new models every year. Whole fleets of cars have already been hacked by experts. For the moment, the criminal world does not seem to be too interested in these “connected objects”, perhaps for lack of financial profitability for this type of attack. However, vehicles are already a free field for cyber espionage and the great transition of the sector will only open new doors for hackers.
In France, the electric car continues to rise, with 13% market share over the first nine months of the year: 140,848 plug-in vehicles were sold between January and September 2022, up 32% compared to the same period last year. France has nearly 70,000 charging points open to the public in October 2022, and policies are targeting 700,000 by 2030. Until then, the question of the security of these terminals has not arisen.
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