Stuttgart, end of August 2025 – asvin’s expertise in risk analysis for critical infrastructure is increasingly being featured in major investigative stories in leading media outlets. Die ZEIT and the Stuttgarter Zeitung reported on the vulnerability of inverters to cyberattacks. Inverters are components in solar power systems that attackers can use to launch cyberattacks on critical infrastructure for our power supply.
Data journalists from both editorial offices had taken a close look at the scene of solar power system manufacturers and their components, figures from the Federal Network Agency, OSINT data sources, and private solar power system owners. Using the example of a knowledgeable customer of the system provider Enpal, attack methods were tested on a real object in Mainz and documented.
The data journalism teams received technical support from asvin experts and asvin partners in the ReSilent research project.
The result is two articles, each in the print and electronic editions of both newspapers. Taking advantage of the possibilities offered by online versions, Die Zeit and Stuttgarter Zeitung provided informative infographics. These provide insights into the technical structure of home solar systems, as well as information on the countries of origin of vulnerable inverters.
In both cases, the reporting contributes to open discussion about threats to critical infrastructure. Cybercriminals can plan and carry out their attacks as long as this openness is lacking. That is why we not only welcome investigative media reporting. We also support the detection and analysis of vulnerabilities in cyberspace with all our available expertise.
We do this not only in interviews and data journalism research, which are frequently requested, but also in a total of eleven research projects. In these projects, we investigate the circumstances, background, and limitations of attack methods and make the results available to the public. Last but not least, it is worth taking a look at asvin’s portfolio of solutions, which incorporates all of our efforts to develop the best possible cybersecurity methods currently available.
