How green energy makes us vulnerable to cyberattack
China launches an amphibious attack on Taiwan. The U.S. responds with a missile attack to sink Chinese ships.
Within minutes, California is plunged into darkness, followed by New York and Washington. Electric trucks around America start crashing into other vehicles. This may seem far-fetched, but government climate policies are making it easier for the Chinese Communist Party to wage a multifront cyberattack.
Even the Biden administration is raising alarms about how malign actors could exploit electric vehicles, chargers and rooftop solar systems to wreak havoc on the homeland. So-called distributed energy systems provide an increasing number of entry points to the grid. An academic study last November modeled a case in which a remote attacker commandeered public EV chargers to create electric frequency distortions that led to a systemwide blackout in Manhattan.
“Such attacks will become feasible by 2030 with increased EV adoption," the authors warned. President Biden hopes to install 500,000 public EV chargers by 2030. That’s 500,000 potential bots America’s enemies could turn into weapons to take down the grid.
Rooftop solar and renewable generators are similarly vulnerable. A 2022 Energy Department cybersecurity briefing noted that distributed renewable generators could be more vulnerable than fossil-fuel and nuclear plants to cyberattacks because “their output is highly configurable in unique and powerful ways" and “software-driven and digital-controlled." “As more solar is installed and inverters become more advanced, this risk grows," the Energy Department warns. If a solar inverter’s “software isn’t updated and secure, its data could be intercepted and manipulated.
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