A collaborative team at LSU and Southern University has been awarded a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to address critical cybersecurity vulnerabilities in electric vehicle charging stations. Discovered by LSU cybersecurity expert Elias Bou-Harb and his team, these vulnerabilities pose significant risks, including the potential for hackers to access and exploit tens of thousands of EV charging stations connected to the power grid. This project not only aims to secure these systems but also to educate and train a more diverse cybersecurity workforce, leveraging the strengths of both universities.

Electric vehicle charging and management stations are operated by a multitude of vendors throughout the United States who can access them both locally and remotely. So can hackers, learned LSU cybersecurity expert Elias Bou-Harb, associate professor in the LSU Division of Computer Science & Engineering, during research for a landmark paper last year. As part of that work, Bou-Harb and his co-authors discovered 120 zero-day vulnerabilities—so called because they’re critical flaws in software or hardware that can be easily exploited by attackers, typically leaving vendors with zero days to prepare for such attacks.

“We were doing random scans for internet-connected devices when we realized we’d indexed an electric vehicle charging management station, and our first question was, ‘Why are these even publicly available?’” Bou-Harb said. “We then found almost 30,000 online, many of which could be accessed remotely and had serious vulnerabilities, so we felt compelled to contact those vendors to allow them to rectify their networks and devices before we published our paper a few months later.”

Attacks on electric vehicle charging systems could potentially destroy cars by overloading batteries, leak credit card and other personal data from users and disrupt the nation’s power and transportation infrastructure.

To solve this problem, Bou-Harb teamed up with Sudhir Trivedi, a professor in the computer science department at Southern University in Baton Rouge, the largest historically Black university in Louisiana. Together, they applied for a Computer and Information Science and Engineering, or CISE, research expansion grant from the National Science Foundation to pursue more detailed research while broadening access to cybersecurity education and training at minority-serving institutions across the country. The broader partnership includes researchers at the University of South Florida; University of Texas at San Antonio, a federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institution, or HSI; and George Mason, an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution, or AANAPSSI.

“This grant represents a transformative opportunity for our students,” said Krutthika Hirebasur Krishnappa, assistant professor of computer science at Southern, where 87 percent of students identify as Black or African American. “It will provide them with access to cutting-edge resources, training, mentorship, graduate programs and careers in the rapidly evolving field of cybersecurity.”

The project will create new academic courses as well as hands-on labs.

“By leveraging the strengths and expertise of both Southern University and LSU, we can drive significant advancements in cybersecurity education and research,” Krishnappa added. “This will benefit not only our students but also the broader community and industry.”

Some Southern students who work on the project will be mentored by Bou-Harb at LSU.

“Together, we will go deep into the security of these electric vehicle charging management stations from a digital forensics perspective and network security perspective,” Bou-Harb said. “I think we all remember what happened with CrowdStrike last month. Our project will help prevent also those accidental bugs that could have truly disastrous consequences.”

The grant will run through 2028 and is highly competitive with only three or four awards made by the National Science Foundation each award cycle. LSU’s share in the project is just under $400,000.

In 2022, LSU and Southern University signed the A&M Agenda for Louisiana to increase collaboration and impact for students and the state.