Volume 16, Number 1

Exploring the EV Charging Ecosystem and Performing an Experimental Assessment of its Cloud and Mobile Application Infrastructure Security

  Authors

Pooja Patil¹, Sara Acikkol Dogan¹, Samir Tout¹, and Ranu Parmar², ¹Eastern Michigan University, USA, ²Hitachi Energy, USA

  Abstract

The security of Electric Vehicle (EV) charging has gained momentum after the increase in the EV adoption in the past few years. Mobile applications have been integrated into EV charging systems that mainly use a cloud-based platform to host their services and data. Like many complex systems, cloud systems are susceptible to cyberattacks if proper measures are not taken by the organization to secure them. In this paper, we explore the security of key components in the EV charging infrastructure, including the mobile application and its cloud service. We conducted an experiment that initiated a Man in the Middle attack between an EV app and its cloud services. Our results showed that it is possible to launch attacks against the connected infrastructure by taking advantage of vulnerabilities that may have substantial economic and operational ramifications on the EV charging ecosystem. We conclude by providing mitigation suggestions and future research directions.

  Keywords

Cloud infrastructure, Electric vehicle charging, Security analysis, Mitigation techniques, mobile application.