Peril at the Plug: Investigating EV Charger Security and Safety Failures
Black Hat USA 2025 · Day 1 · Briefings
Researchers from Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative demonstrated that software vulnerabilities in consumer EV chargers — including bugs exposed at Pwn2Own 2024 and 2025 — can be leveraged to push hardware beyond its rated limits, producing arc flashes, molten copper, toxic gas explosions, and sustained fire. Hardware-independent safety mechanisms are absent from most of the eight chargers tested, and standard circuit breakers provide far less protection than consumers assume. ---
AI review
ZDI sets chargers on fire in a laboratory and calls it security research — and they're right to. The Wolf Box attack chain is clever, the hardware destruction footage makes the threat visceral, and the circuit-breaker myth debunking is the kind of practical consumer safety information that has real-world consequences. This earns its slot.