Evaluating 5G-enabled EV Charging Infrastructure’s Resilience Through Stealthy Cyber-Attacks

The adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs) over the last years has gained increased attention due to the technological, financial, and environmental gains they offer. However, it has also introduced a vast and exponentially growing threat landscape, which is also complex to analyze. The complexity is even increased when considering the current integration of EV chargers in 5G-oriented network slices and architectures. Hence, the threat landscape analysis becomes crucial to derive the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) that are applicable to the EV-oriented ecosystem as well as their impact on the underlying charging infrastructure. This paper proposes a framework for conducting stealthy attack scenarios and validating their impact on the EV charging infrastructure. In the current version of the framework, two prominent attack types are included: the Denial of Charge when legitimate users are using the EV charging stations and the False Data Injection, tampering with the meter values during and at the end of the charging transaction. For these scenarios, we describe the testbed that is used to conduct the cyber-attacks, provide a detailed overview of the TTPs, and demonstrate their impact on the charging infrastructure.