New chargers and longer-range EVs have put range anxiety to bed for many people, but it now appears that EV owners need to be wary of cyberattacks at charging stations. A recent study from Upstream found more than 400 cyberattack incidents last year, an increasing share of which landed at EV chargers.
While the number of charger attacks is small compared to the overall figures, they are increasing in frequency and potential impact. More than half of the EV charger-related attacks last year could have impacted millions of devices, many of them far outside of the charger ecosystem.
Those risks come from many EVs’ extreme levels of connectivity. Upstream’s vice president of marketing, Shira Sarid-Hausirer, said, “It’s not necessarily the number of assets, it’s the connectivity and the fact that they’re all interconnected that increases the risk dramatically.”
Hackers could be looking for personal data or to scam people out of money using fraudulent payment systems. Some also worry that bad actors could gain access to critical vehicle control systems, putting the driver and other road users at risk of a crash.
This report is just the latest in a long line of news about the auto industry’s data security failures. Toyota, BMW, and many others have been found to have vulnerabilities, and other research has shown that most automakers gather far too much data on their vehicle owners.
[Images: Felipe Sanchez, John Penney via Shutterstock; Kia]
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