Hackers changed display at Russian charging station to read: 'Putin is a d**khead'

Tensions continue to rise after Russia launched a war on Ukraine. Amid the violent consequences of President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade, pro-Ukrainian hackers have joined in the fight.

As reported by Vice, electric vehicle charging stations along Russia’s M11 motorway are now failing to work due to the Ukrainian company that provided parts for the chargers hacking them.

The company is said to be using a backdoor in the chargers’ control systems.

News of the hacker's actions was shared in a Facebook post from the Russian energy company Rosseti.

"Charging stations on the M-11 route were subjected to external intervention. They are currently off for preventive work. It should be noted that the IT infrastructure of these charging stations is not related to the other chargers under the management of the companies of the Group 'Rosseti' and, especially, to the main activity of the Group," the message began.

"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."

"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."

Since posting, people have taken to social media to show videos of the chargers that were disabled and programmed to display pro-Ukrainian messages.

AutoEnterprise’s Facebook page re-posted a video error message that read English “CALL SERVICE NO PLUGS AVAILABLE."

The screen then depicts an additional message in Russian: “GLORY TO UKRAINE! GLORY TO THE HEROES! PUTIN IS A D**KHEAD! DEATH TO THE ENEMY!"

Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.