Russian Charging Stations Hacked, Now Displaying ‘Putin Is A D**khead’, ‘Glory To Ukraine’ Messages – EQ Mag Pro

• The cyber attacks are now affecting car owners in Russia. A bunch of electric car charging stations outside Moscow were hacked and disabled

• Some electric vehicle (EV) charging stations along a Russian motorway have been hacked to display anti-Putin messages

• The charging points reportedly displayed an error message which said ‘CALL SERVICE NO PLUGS AVAILABLE’, before pro-Ukraine messages appeared on a screen.

• Some of these included ‘GLORY TO UKRAINE’, ‘GLORY TO THE HEROES’, ‘PUTIN IS A D***HEAD’ and ‘DEATH TO THE ENEMY’.

• Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hackers are ramping up their effort to disrupt Kremlin’s digital infrastructure.

The cyber attacks are now affecting car owners in Russia. A bunch of electric car charging stations outside Moscow were hacked and disabled, Vice reported.

Some electric vehicle (EV) charging stations along a Russian motorway have been hacked to display anti-Putin messages, according to Russian energy company Rosseti.

The non-functional charging stations are on the M11 motorway, which links Moscow to St Petersburg, Rosseti posted on Facebook.

The post states that the Ukrainian company that provided some of the parts had hacked the charging points to which it still had access. The charging points reportedly displayed an error message which said ‘CALL SERVICE NO PLUGS AVAILABLE’, before pro-Ukraine messages appeared on a screen.

Some of these included ‘GLORY TO UKRAINE’, ‘GLORY TO THE HEROES’, ‘PUTIN IS A D***HEAD’ and ‘DEATH TO THE ENEMY’.

“Charging stations on the M-11 route were subjected to external intervention. They are currently off for preventive work. It should be noted that the IT infrastructure of these charging stations is not related to the other chargers under the management of the companies of the Group ‘Rosseti’ and, especially, to the main activity of the Group,” the company said.

“Charging stations installed on the M-11 route were purchased in 2020 according to the results of an open purchase procedure. The provider was given by the LLC ‘Gzhelprom’ (Russia). It was later discovered that the main components (incl. A. the controller) are actually produced by the company Autoenterprise (Ukraine), and the Russian supplier produced an open assembly,” it added.

“The manufacturer left a “marketing” in the controller, which gave him the opportunity to have hidden internet access. According to our information, data controllers are widely used on power charging stations exported by Ukraine to Europe,” the company further said.

As per Vice, the phrase ‘Putin is a d***head’ has been a popular Ukrainian phrase ever since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, especially among football fans in the border region of Kharkiv, which has been under relentless attack from Russian troops.

The incident is just one of several major cyberattacks to hit Russia throughout the past several days after the hacking collective Anonymous formally declared war on Russian infrastructure following the invasion of Ukraine.

Source: indiatimes