The development of cyber security threats in solar closely mirrors what we saw with the rise of the internet three decades ago, says Uri Sadot, Cyber Security Programme Director at SolarEdge Technologies.
Had we paused in 1995 and taken the time to design the basic protocols of the internet to be cybersecure from the bottom up, the global industry would have saved hundreds of billions of rands in reactive fixes. With the benefit of hindsight, the solar industry should be designing its products with cyber security top of mind as standard, before mass mainstream deployment occurs and it is too late to prevent a catastrophic cyber event or face extortionate costs to deploy retrospective cyber security measures. Unfortunately, today there is little mandate or governance to enforce this on solar manufacturers.
The sophistication of cyberattacks has increased hugely in recent years, such as AI-based, botnet, and 0-day attacks, as well as state-sponsored attacks used as a tool for geopolitical aggression, with energy networks and grid infrastructure a potentially crippling target.
Cybersecurity threats to solar
The solar inverter is the critical component of a solar system. It is also the part that connects to an energy network, as well as the grid as countries move to more distributed energy sources to support grid stabilisation. If cyber security is not taken seriously, this opens the door to potential hacking of the inverter, which could lead to energy supply being remotely controlled and exposed. Whether youre a homeowner, business owner or grid operator, considerations should be made over who has access to these inverters and vetting the manufacturers of the technology with cyber security top of mind, he says.
