Russian EV charging stations hacked with ‘Putin is a d***head’ message

Equipment was built by Ukrainian company that kept a backdoor into it, Russian owners say

Electric vehicle charging stations on a Russian motorway were hacked by a Ukrainian company that helped build them with a message reading “Putin is a d***head”.

The chargers along the M11 motorway, which runs between Moscow and St Petersburg, were disabled and started to display pro-Ukrainian messages, according to social media users.

“Glory to Ukraine / Glory to the heroes / Putin is a d***head / Death to the enemy,” the message reportedly read.

The phrase about the Russian leader became a popular slogan in Ukraine following the 2014 Russian invasion, according to Motherboard.

Russian energy company Rosseti stated that the chargers were bought through a Russian company, which had outsourced production to Ukrainian company AutoEnterprise, based in Kharkiv.

“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 a open assembly,” Rosseti said on Facebook.

“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.”

AutoEnterprise re-posted video of the hacked chargers on its own Facebook page.