In recent days, reports of unidentified communication devices found in solar inverters manufactured in China have raised concerns about the possibility of remote manipulation of power supply in China. A former analyst from the U.S. National Security Agency believes that the Chinese Communist Party is deploying equipment in “strategic areas” to disrupt U.S. commercial activities.
Two unnamed sources previously told Reuters that American experts, while inspecting Chinese-made solar inverters for security issues, discovered unauthorized communication devices in official product documents. These sources indicated that the unidentified communication devices in these inverters could be used as a remote bypass of firewalls, potentially leading to serious consequences.
Another source revealed that unauthorized communication devices, including cellular radios, were also found in batteries from several Chinese suppliers over the past nine months. However, Reuters could not confirm how many solar inverters and batteries they inspected.
According to Reuters, this could potentially allow the Chinese government to bypass firewalls, remotely shut down inverters, or change their settings, disrupting grid stability, damaging energy infrastructure, and even causing widespread power outages.
Rocky Cole, a former intelligence analyst at the U.S. National Security Agency and co-founder of iVerify, told Fox News Digital on June 5 that the Chinese Communist Party could “highly likely” exploit these unidentified inverters to access U.S. infrastructure.
Cole stated, “This fits very well with patterns of the Chinese [Communist Party] implanting hardware into critical U.S. infrastructure to coordinate network attacks against the U.S. in the event of conflicts similar to those with Taiwan.” He believes that it’s hard not to see this as a national security risk.
He further expressed concerns about the “supply chain” because Chinese companies are required by law to cooperate with the government, providing intelligence agencies with opportunities to potentially collaborate with manufacturers to implant “backdoors” in hardware. Cole added, “Without rigorous monitoring of the supply chain, it’s difficult to ensure that these backdoors have not been inserted during ‘supply chain operations.'”
He believes that U.S. officials recognize the critical risks posed by Chinese-manufactured hardware to key infrastructure.
Electric power inverters are mainly produced in China and used worldwide to connect solar panels, wind turbines to the grid, as well as in batteries, heat pumps, and electric vehicle chargers.
(References: Fox News and Reuters)