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The gigantic and unregulated power plants in the cloud

Recently a Dutch hacker was able to take control of 4 million solar panel installations (FTM, Dutch and Euractiv, English). And this wasn’t the first time either something like this has happened (PV Magazine). As usual, huge thanks are due to the many beta readers and experts who helped improve this article with their feedback, valuable insights and knowledge! This post was machine translated (not too well) from the original Dutch version, which was also more focused on The Netherlands.

Also very alarming is that Dutch ethical hackers Wietse Boonstra and Hidde Smit (impressive people) managed to modify software in solar panel installations, without permission from the manufacturer. But because we didn’t pay attention, the management of those “consumer appliances” has now moved to just a few suppliers who, on sunny days, even measured individually, control a significant part of our power supply. SolarPower Europe, an interest group, has also thought about it and writes in this document: “In the context of the broad cybersecurity principles established in NIS2, requirements specific to the solar sector should be in place for its implementation.

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