4 ms·
You can trace out the circuits on a traditional solar panel. They aren't complex devices. If someone managed to hide some kind of control chip in there and al
by jandrese 1y ago
You can trace out the circuits on a traditional solar panel. They aren't complex devices. If someone managed to hide some kind of control chip in there and also some sort of connectivity to trigger it then my hat is off to them.
I would worry more about the inverters, including microinverters.
Also consider that if someone is doing industrial sabotage on that scale it would be much easier to attack the fossil fuel and nuclear power plants and their enormous computer controlled generators. Even hydroelectric would be susceptible. Or maybe attack the substations. There is nothing unique or special about solar panels that makes them a good target, and their highly distributed and diverse nature actually makes them more difficult.
- ben_w 1y agoOther targets may be more appropriate, but: > and their highly distributed and diverse nature actually makes them more difficult Distributed doesn't make it harder, if/when there's a common failure mode. See e.g. this with the power grid which is obviously as distributed as any PV connected to it: https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/01/could-hackers-use-new-attack-to-take-down-european-power-grid/ https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/01/could-hackers-use-n...
- jandrese 1y agoDepends if you can exploit the system directly from the Internet or if you need to break into hundreds of thousands of individual networks before you can trigger the attack.