According to foreign media reports, engineers from the Southwest Research Institute have identified cybersecurity vulnerabilities in electric vehicles (EVs) that use DC fast charging systems.
DC fast charging systems are currently the fastest and most commonly used charging method for electric vehicles.
This high-voltage technology relies on power line communication (PLC) technology to transmit smart grid data between the vehicle and charging equipment.
, In the laboratory, the SwRI team used vulnerabilities in the PLC layer to obtain network keys and digital addresses on chargers and vehicles.
Katherine Kozan, an engineer at SwRI’s High Reliability Systems division, said: “Through penetration testing, we found that the PLC layer between the vehicle and the charger was poorly secured and lacked encryption protection.
During testing, the research team discovered unsafe key generation on old chips and confirmed through online research that this was a known problem.
The research is part of SwRI’s long-term work to help the mobility industry and governments improve automotive cybersecurity for embedded automotive computers and smart grid infrastructure.
The project is based on a 2020 SwRI study, when SwRI used a labor-made spoofing device to crack the J1772 charger and disrupt the charging process.
In its latest project, SwRI explores vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging technology governed by ISO15118 specifications for communication between electric vehicles and electric vehicle power supply equipment (EVSE) to support power transmission.
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