Following the news that – Brokenwire Hack Could Let Remote Attackers Disrupt Charging for Electric Vehicles (thehackernews.com), Information Security experts reacted below.
Following the news that – Brokenwire Hack Could Let Remote Attackers Disrupt Charging for Electric Vehicles (thehackernews.com), Information Security experts reacted below.
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The Brokenwire hack could be used by bad actors, such as those based in Russia, to interrupt charging for the 12 million EVs currently on the road, including critical vehicles in retaliation of various countries refusing to buy oil from Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine.
We see this Brokenwire attack as a warning flag more than anything. The specific attack described can be seen as an \”old school\” attack – using an electromagnetic signal to disrupt the charging process. That said – it is very likely that the companies behind the CCS standard, and others like it, are already looking to update the communication between the electric cars and the chargers. If they are looking at more sophisticated protocols such as Near Field Communications (NFC) or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and even potentially vehicle-to-everything (V2X), malicious actors may be able to get beyond a simple disruption of the charging process. With the level of sophistication of computing and networking deployed in these smart cars, the ramifications of a sophisticated attack can be quite alarming.
While this attack clearly isn’t being deployed at scale today, this type of research is invaluable for building a more resilient infrastructure for electric vehicles. When a new technology starts to gain market adoption, there are always lessons to be learned. Imagine how the industry around refining, transporting and using gasoline as fuel developed. The goal for electric vehicles should be to avoid preventable disasters while we build out a resilient infrastructure for supporting this industry.