This Scary EV Charger Hack Could Burn Down Your House

As the world shifts towards a more sustainable future with electric vehicles, hackers have found a new and alarming vulnerability in our charging infrastructure: home EV chargers.

Last year's Black Hat conference showcased some frightening hacking techniques that targeted modern cars, but this year's presentation by researchers from Trend Micro took it to a whole new level. According to Jonathan Andersson, security research manager at Trend Micro, hackers can meddle with your charging schedule, choke down the charging speed, or tweak the billing – but they've now set their sights on physical damage.

Andersson began by highlighting Pwn2Own automotive, a hacking contest sponsored by Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative that has revealed security vulnerabilities in cars and related tech. When reviewing past winners, Andersson noted that the bugs found were all surprisingly simple. "When you take these devices apart, they typically have a main CPU that runs the GUI," he said. "Sometimes there’s a second processor for power switching and measurement. There are also a lot of devices and peripherals that contribute to quite a large attack surface." In short, EV chargers aren't currently designed with security in mind.

Researchers from Trend Micro took it upon themselves to test out-of-the-box unmodified EV chargers, and to their surprise, none of them prevented overheating. "To achieve the task, we needed a way to load the EV chargers with maximum power and pull as much current as possible," said Kaliyanakis, another researcher on the team. They used a bank of heaters to draw various amounts of current during testing, resulting in some alarming results.

The hack only works on a charger that's had a small physical modification or is defective – but even then, it was nothing short of alarming. In every case, the cables overheated, with some spewing flames, releasing flammable gases into the air, which ignited. One melted the cord holder off the wall, and others released molten copper.

"Any cable that didn’t fail violently still failed by melting," said Andersson. "If the melting cable shorts power through the signal channels, your EV could be damaged." He noted that overheating the devices to failure took anywhere from an hour to 5.5 hours – a shocking amount of time for something as simple as a home charger.

So how can you protect yourself and your EV? Andersson offered some sage advice: "Don’t mount the cable under the charger, or under anything flammable." He also warned against keeping the cable coiled while charging. "The manufacturer may recommend wrapping the cord around the charger—don't do that," he advised. A shorter cable is safer, and one of his simple circuit diagrams showed a modified charger that would be immune to the overheating problem.

Andersson encouraged EV charger vendors to "own this problem and fix it." He noted that new but poor-quality chargers show up for sale every day, with the same-old bugs. As for your trusty charger in your garage, it probably won’t explode into a ball of fire – but it's still not a bad idea to take precautions.

The attack described here only works on a modified (or defective) charger, but the potential risks are real. So, what can you do? Here are some simple steps to protect yourself and your EV:

• Don't mount the cable under the charger, or under anything flammable.
• Avoid keeping the cable coiled while charging.
• Prioritize a shorter cable for your EV charger.

By taking these simple precautions, you can significantly reduce the risk of overheating and potential damage to your EV. Remember: with great power comes great responsibility – in this case, designing chargers that prioritize safety and security over convenience.