EV Charger Hacking Could Imperil the Security of the Power Grid – Mother Jones

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It was co-published with Climate Desk partner Wired. 

With his electric Kia EV6 running low on power, Sky Malcolm pulled into a bank of fast-chargers near Terre Haute, Indiana, to plug in. As his car powered up, he peeked at nearby chargers. One in particular stood out.

Instead of the businesslike welcome screen displayed on the other Electrify America units, this one featured a picture of President Biden pointing his finger, with an “I did that!” caption. It was the same meme the president’s critics started slapping on gas pumps as prices soared last year, cloned 20 times across the screen. 

“It was, unfortunately, not terribly surprising,” Malcolm said of the hack, which he stumbled upon last fall. Such shenanigans are increasingly common. At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, hackers tweaked charging stations along the Moscow–Saint Petersburg motorway in Russia to greet users with anti-Putin messages. Around the same time, cyber vandals in England programmed public chargers to broadcast pornography. Just this year, the hosts of YouTube channel The Kilowatts tweeted a video showing it was possible to take control of an Electrify America station’s operating system. 

While such breaches have so far remained relatively innocuous, cybersecurity experts say the consequences would be far more severe at the hands of truly nefarious miscreants. As companies, governments and consumers sprint to install more chargers, the risks could only grow.

In recent years, security researchers and white-hat hackers have identified sprawling vulnerabilities in internet-connected home and public charging hardware that could expose customer data, compromise Wi-Fi networks, and, in a worst-case scenario, bring down power grids. Given the dangers, everyone from device manufacturers to the Biden administration is rushing to fortify these increasingly common machines and establish security standards.

“This is a major problem,”…