Electric vehicle owners were in for a shock recently after hackers exposed the cybersecurity vulnerabilities of charging points to display porn content on their screens.
According to a report by BBC News, the incident took place in the Isle of Wight, UK, on three of the council’s car park vehicle chargers where an adult website was displayed on the charge point’s small built-in screen rather than the council’s own after nefarious cyber fiddlers redirected the site’s address.
The story claims the chargepoints ‘were originally part of the Chargepoint Genie network but have recently been transferred to the GeniePoint network.’
Council staff had been sent to the chargepoint sites to ensure the third-party website had been covered up and apologized to anyone who saw the inappropriate content. “We are saddened to learn that a third-party web address displayed on our electric vehicle signage appears to have been hacked.”
Cybersecurity is a pressing issue in the field of electric vehicles with the main focus being on the vulnerability of data transfer from chargepoints. While this incident is relatively harmless, it does however reveal a potential gaping hole with EV charging cybersecurity.
