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The increasing need for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the drive for green cities have promoted the use of electric vehicles due to their environmental benefits. In fact, countries have set their own targets and are offering incentives for people to purchase EVs as opposed to traditional gasoline-powered cars. Manufacturers have been hastily deploying charging stations to meet the charging requirements of the EVs on the road. This rapid deployment has contributed to the EV ecosystem's lack of proper security measures, raising multiple questions related to the power grid security and vulnerability. In this paper, we offer a complete examination of the EV ecosystem from the vulnerability to the attacks and finally the solutions. We start by examining the existing vulnerabilities in the EV ecosystem that can be exploited to control the EV charging and launch attacks against the power grid. We then discuss the non-linear nature of the EV charging load and simulate multiple attacks that can be launched against the power grid using these EVs. EV loads have high reactive power demand which can have a larger impact on the grid compared to residential loads. We perform simulations on two power grids and demonstrate that while the grid can recover after a 48 MW attack utilizing traditional residential loads, a smaller 30 MW EV load attack can completely destabilize the system. Finally, we suggest several patches for the existing vulnerabilities and discuss two methods aimed at detecting EV attacks., Comment: International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, Available online 21 November 2021, 107784, Full citation details will be added when the final version becomes available

Advanced wireless technologies are, nowadays, being exploited as means for intelligent transportation management and on-the-road driving assistance. However, the recent synergic efforts in both industry and academia are symptomatic of a paradigm shift in Intelligent Transportation Systems. Today's vehicles, being equipped with computerized modules and wireless devices, characterize themselves by a revolutionary smart personality. In particular they can carry and distribute information, they inter-communicate and are capable of communicating with other stationary units deployed along roadways. Most importantly, they can sense. Ultimately, the transportation infrastructure embraces versatile wireless communication systems with the objective of provisioning Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE). In order to catalyze the realization of this objective, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has allocated 75 MHz of spectrum for Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC). The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has specifically tailored the 802.11p standard to regulate access to this spectrum. The IEEE 1609.4 protocol allows for multi-channel access and is currently being standardized. Alternatively, researchers have engaged in the design of scheduling policies for the purpose of increasing the spectrum access efficiency and optimizing the performance of vehicular networks in terms of several classical metrics. The recently emerging spectrum scarcity problem has led numerous investigations on the potential exploitation of cognitive radios as well as the feasibility of Vehicular Dynamic Spectrum Access (VDSA) schemes with the objective of: a) enhancing spectrum utilization and b) improving the network's throughput and response time. This paper sheds the light over the latest advancements in each of the above-mentioned research sectors and highlights pending open issues in each of them.