Analysts Modat has identified 8,547 exposed systems that are part of solar parks and wind farms across 35 countries in Europe.

With renewables generating over half (54 per cent) of the EU’s electricity, there is a huge vulnerability as any site that is reachable from the internet is just as close to an attacker as the next one. Increases in AL, and potentially quantum computing (pictured) will also accelerate the risks.

Using Modat Magnify, the company mapped every operating wind farm and solar park in the EU, EFTA and EU candidate countries. then looked for the systems behind them that anyone can reach from the internet. The analysis found thousands of exposed assets belonging to solar parks and wind farms, in almost every country, and there could be far more that were not traced.

What these systems exposed went well beyond data, with some being the management interface of a single turbine and others sitting one level higher and controlling several turbines or a whole farm.

The full research report, To See the Wind and the Sun, also contains maps of Europe’s energy landscape, from conventional plants to every operating wind farm and solar park and examples of systems with full control over an entire wind farm, and what that means for Europe’s power supply.

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