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Brokenwire Hack Could Let Remote Attackers Disrupt Electric Vehicle Charging


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Charging an electric vehicle.

The researchers said the use of power-line communications for charging communication "is a serious design flaw that leaves millions of vehicles, some of which belong to critical infrastructure, vulnerable."

Credit: The Hacker News

Researchers at the U.K.'s University of Oxford and Switzerland's Armasuisse S+T (the center of technology of the Swiss Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sports) identified a method for attacking the Combined Charging System (CCS) and interrupting electric vehicle charging sessions.

The Brokenwire technique disrupts control communications between the vehicle and the charger, allowing hackers to stop charging sessions wirelessly from as far away as 151 feet (46 meters).

The researchers did not release additional details, to prevent active exploitation of the vulnerability, but indicated such attacks could be perpetrated with a combination of off-the-shelf software-defined radios, power amplifiers, and dipole antennas.

According to the researchers, "The use of PLC [power-line communications] for charging communication is a serious design flaw that leaves millions of vehicles, some of which belong to critical infrastructure, vulnerable."

From The Hacker News
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Abstracts Copyright © 2022 SmithBucklin, Washington, DC, USA


 

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