EVECTOR: An orchestrator for analysing attacks in electric vehicles charging system

TL;DR

EVECTOR is a new framework that enables detailed security and performance analysis of electric vehicle charging systems, including realistic attack simulations, addressing limitations of existing tools.

Contribution

The paper introduces EVECTOR, a novel orchestrator for analyzing attacks and evaluating security in EV charging infrastructure, capable of handling complex protocols and attack scenarios.

Findings

EVECTOR effectively simulates cyber-physical and cyber attacks.

Case studies demonstrate improved security insights.

Framework supports both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Abstract

Electric Vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure is critical for the widespread adoption of EVs, ensuring efficient and secure charging processes. Evaluating the security and performance of EV charging systems in real-world infrastructure poses significant challenges due to the diversity of information exchange between vehicles and charging stations/Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), including complex network protocols, scale of deployment and a variety of potential threats. Existing simulation frameworks are unable to handle complex security scenarios across these differing data exchange protocols. In this paper, we propose a novel EV orchestration framework: EVECTOR, which addresses the limitations of existing simulation systems by enabling both quantitative and qualitative analyses of EV charging scenarios. EVECTOR also provides a flexible attack orchestrator to simulate realistic attack behaviours on EV charging infrastructure. We validate the EVECTOR framework through two case studies: (a) cyber-physical attacks such as broken wire; and (b) cyber-specific attacks such as frame fuzzification. The case studies highlight the effectiveness of EVECTOR in providing deeper insights into the security and performance of EV charging systems.