Electromobility: Cyber risk Charging infrastructure: Researchers hack Tesla wallbox in 45 seconds

Dusseldorf. A man with a laptop under his arm appears in a company parking lot. He plugs a cable into a Tesla wallbox and connects an adapter. The man opens his laptop and briefly types something on the keyboard. Then he unplugs everything again, hangs the charging cable neatly over the wallbox and leaves. The scene lasts 45 seconds. In these seconds the stranger hacked the wallbox.

The real danger begins when a car drives up to the manipulated wallbox: As soon as he stops, the manipulated wallbox makes contact with his radio via WLAN. The malicious program migrates from the wallbox to the car radio and nests itself there.

The car later drives into a parking garage. The program jumps from his radio to two charging stations from the Chinese provider Autel and the US company Chargepoint. It reaches every additional station without any action from the original attacker.