Security News > 2021 > February > Research Shows How Solar Energy Installations Can Be Abused by Hackers
Researchers at cybersecurity firm FireEye have analyzed a gateway device used for solar energy installations, and discovered vulnerabilities that could be useful to malicious hackers.
FireEye conducted its research on a version of the device offered by Tesla under the SolarCity brand - Tesla acquired solar panel maker SolarCity in 2016.
The X2e device is a programmable gateway used for residential and small commercial solar installations.
FireEye's research involved a physical inspection of the device, an analysis of debugging interfaces, removing the NAND storage, analyzing the file system and bootloader, glitch attacks, and software exploitation.
"If an attacker is able to compromise an X2e device, they would have access to a networked device in a home or enterprise," FireEye researchers Jake Valletta and Sam Sabetan told SecurityWeek.
FireEye has made available detailed technical information on its research into the X2e device.