Novel attack against the Combined Charging System (CCS) in electric vehicles to remotely cause a denial of service
Electric Vehicle (EV) commonly utilises the Combined Charging System (CCS) for DC rapid charging. To exchange important messages such as the State of Charge (SoC) with the Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) CCS uses a high-bandwidth IP link provided by the HomePlug Green PHY (HPGP) power-line communication (PLC) technology. The attack interrupts necessary control communication between the vehicle and charger, causing charging sessions to abort. The attack can be conducted wirelessly from a distance using electromagnetic interference, allowing individual vehicles or entire fleets to be disrupted simultaneously. In addition, the attack can be mounted with off-the-shelf radio hardware and minimal technical knowledge. With a power budget of 1 W, the attack is successful from around 47 m distance. The exploited behavior is a required part of the HomePlug Green PHY, DIN 70121 & ISO 15118 standards and all known implementations exhibit it. In addition to electric cars, Brokenwire affects electric ships, airplanes and heavy duty vehicles utilising these standards.
- Published
- Apr 12, 2022
- Updated
- Jun 17, 2026
- EPSS
- 0.5% · 40th percentile
- CWE
- CWE-306
Sign in to follow · You’ll be notified if a followed record enters KEV, gets an exploit or is updated.
Report tools
Action score
26
Monitor
Low priority for now.
- CVSS
- 26 / 40 · 6.5 / 10
- CISA KEV
- 0 / 30 · Not listed
- EPSS
- 0 / 30 · 0.5%
CNA vs NVD score
- NVD
- 6.5
- CNA · NCSC.ch
- 4.6
- 1.9 point gap
CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.
Affected systems
| Vendor | Product | CPE |
|---|---|---|
| combined charging system project | combined charging system firmware | cpe:2.3:o:combined_charging_system_project:combined_charging_system_firmware |
| combined charging system project | combined charging system | cpe:2.3:h:combined_charging_system_project:combined_charging_system |
Affected versions
NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.
- combined charging system project combined charging system firmwareup to 2.0 inclusive
Versions reported by the vendor
Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (NCSC.ch). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.
Combined Charging System Combined Charging System
- Current version and later · up to and including 2.0affected
Combined Charging System HomePlug GreenPHY
- Current version and later · up to and including 1.1affected
Remediation
Which version to upgrade to
Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.
No fix version is recorded for this entry. Check the references for vendor advisories.
Exploit status
No known public exploit
No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.
Research context
For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.
Timeline
From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.
No dated events beyond publication.
FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).
Patch and commit links
Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.
No commit or PR link among the references.
Credits
All researchersFinders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.
Variant candidates
Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.
No nightly-computed relations.
Chain candidates
An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.
—
Bug bounty scope
No known public program.
Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).
Technical details
Attack conditions
- Someone on the same network segment can trigger it.
- No account or password is required.
- No user action is required.
- No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
If successful
- Confidentiality
- none
- Integrity
- none
- Availability
- high · the service can be disrupted
- Attack vector
- Adjacent
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality impact
- None
- Integrity impact
- None
- Availability impact
- High
Weakness class (CWE)
CWE-306 · Missing Authentication for Critical FunctionCVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
nvd-primary
Root cause
A function added for development or support ships to production without authentication. It often relies on the assumption that it is “only reachable from the internal network.”
The bug in code
The whole CWE-306 classA representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.
Vulnerable
// Added for the support teamapp.post("/maintenance/reset", resetDevice);Fixed
if (config.maintenanceEnabled) { app.post( "/maintenance/reset", requireSession, requireRole("admin"), resetDevice );}Attack context
MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.
Attack patterns (CAPEC)
ATT&CK techniques
—
Noroxi analysis
No Noroxi analysis for this record yet
We don't hand-write analysis for all 385,000+ vulnerabilities; that wouldn't be honest. For notable, high-impact vulnerabilities our team writes the mechanism, detection and remediation steps.
We use this product, ask for helpChange log
No changes recorded on tracked fields yet. Score, KEV, exploit maturity and fix status changes appear here.