EXPLOITATION OF SECURITY RISKS IN SOLAR INVERTERS THROUGH REMOTE NETWORK ACCESS

Abstract

Solar energy is embracing wide adoption as an alternative, cost effective and clean source of energy. Solar inverter is a core component of solar energy solutions. Modern inverters provide various user programmable ancillary features for customization and best utilisation of solar energy. Connectivity is one of those features which provides a way to monitor or configure the inverters from other computing devices such as computers and smart phones. Thus, making the inverters part of IoT and cyber-physical systems. Owing to the growth in usage of IoT equipment, cyber-attacks on these devices have been on the rise. Recent cyber security incidents related to power grids in general and solar inverters specifically indicate the lack of knowledge about them from cyber security perspective. The gap in body of knowledge points out that inverters being a new addition into cyber-physical space need to be studied with focus on cyber security. For the first time, this detailed study explores the current generation of solar inverters to find security capabilities and identify vulnerabilities which can become target of cyber-attacks. This also presents a new concept that instead of leaving unattended, cyber security measures need to be applied to solar inverters like other computing and IoT devices. As there is a large number of current generation solar inverters in service and expected to remain in service for years to come, there is a need to secure these inverters from potential cyber-attacks after having discovered the vulnerabilities. A monitoring solution is presented for current generation of solar inverters. Suggestions are given to provide security services in future solar inverters by design.