DETROIT – As the world rapidly shifts to EV transport, the automotive industry is experiencing some major teething issues. The global charging network is having to keep pace with more and more EVs on the road, and as manufacturers expand their networks, cracks are starting to appear in their grand schemes.
We recently reported that a long string of EV chargers outside of Moscow were hacked by Ukrainian programmers to display anti-war and anti-Putin messaging, and there have even been cases in the UK where charging station displays showed graphic images. Hacking EV infrastructure is becoming more commonplace, and it could be a bigger issue than many might think.
Experts have seen a rise in charging station hacking incidents in the past few months, including incidents where hackers would load ransomware onto chargers to slow them down or stop functionality altogether. Hackers can also lock users out of their user profiles until they pay a ransom fee, or hack into the chargers themselves to save on charging fees.
“We’re already starting to see the first hacks, and I’m sure there are plenty of cases that have happened that haven’t been published. Hackers are looking for ways to make money,” said Yoav Levy, CEO of Upstream Security, an Israeli provider of automotive cybersecurity platforms, told Automotive News. But it’s not only EV charging stations that are getting hacked: the cars themselves are also being accessed by outside operators for all kinds of nefarious purposes.
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