Hackers disabled stations for charging electric vehicles on the Moscow-Petersburg highway

At the end of February 2022 hackers , stations for charging electric vehicles on the highway were disabled -, MoscowSt. Petersburg as reported in "."Rosseti

Charging stations on the M-11 highway underwent external interference. Currently, they are turned off for preventive work, the Telegram channel says on February 28, 2022.

In social networks, a video appeared from the scoreboard of electric stations, on which inscriptions appeared: "Glory" and To Ukraine insults to the president. Russia Vladimir Putin

As explained in Rosseti, the attackers managed to gain access to equipment through the Internet using controllers installed at the factory.

Hackers disabled stations for charging electric vehicles on the Moscow-Petersburg highway

The company said that the main components of gas stations, including controllers, were produced by the Ukrainian company Autoenterprise. According to the results of the open procurement procedure, the stations themselves were delivered by Gzhelprom LLC in 2020. It also made screwdriver assembly of stations.

The manufacturer left a "bookmark" in the controller, which gave him the possibility of hidden access over the Internet. According to our information, these controllers are widely used at electric charging stations exported by Ukraine to Europe, the Rossetei company said.

All this time, the charging stations were in test operation in isolation. In view of the above circumstances, the best software options for these devices were considered. In the near future, power plants will be "re-tested" and will return to work, Rosseti reported on February 28, 2022.

According to the publication SecurityLab, such at the charging station can have real consequences. If hackers decide to intervene in the operation of such stations, then electric car drivers, their manufacturers and even the city electric network may suffer. Poorly protected program code used on charging stations can reveal to hackers the data of driver bank cards, which will lead to financial losses.^[1]

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