Solar Power Vulnerabilities and Shadow AI: The Perfect Storm You're Not Prepared For

Welcome back!

While you're focused on protecting your corporate networks and cloud infrastructure, attackers are targeting two critical blind spots in your security strategy: the solar power systems that keep your data centers running and the explosive growth of shadow AI across your organization.

Forescout researchers uncovered 46 new vulnerabilities in solar power infrastructure that could allow attackers to destabilize the grid, while Gartner reports that 80% of software vendors will embed AI in applications by 2026—creating a complex web of AI that your security team can't track or secure.

Let's break down what's happening—and how to protect your organization from these converging threats before they spiral out of control.

Your Solar Systems Are Now a Critical Attack Vector

Forescout's Vedere Labs discovered 46 new vulnerabilities across three of the world's top 10 solar inverter vendors, revealing systemic security weaknesses that could impact grid stability and operations.

What's Happening:

• 46 new vulnerabilities identified in Sungrow, Growatt, and SMA solar inverters, allowing attackers to tamper with settings and compromise user privacy

• 80% of solar power vulnerabilities disclosed in the last three years were classified as high or critical severity

• 30% of disclosed vulnerabilities had CVSS scores of 9.8-10, meaning attackers could take full control of affected systems

• Over half of solar inverter manufacturers (53%) and storage system providers (58%) are based in China, raising supply chain security concerns

Why This Matters Now: Solar power systems have rapidly become essential to grid stability and your business continuity. Their increasing connectivity makes them prime targets for state-sponsored actors and criminal groups. A coordinated attack could trigger load-changing attacks that destabilize the grid—potentially leading to emergency power measures or even widespread blackouts affecting your critical operations.

Your current security strategy probably overlooks these systems entirely, creating a blind spot that attackers are already exploiting.

What You Need to Do:

• Conduct an immediate inventory of all solar inverter systems in your organization

• Verify patches have been applied for all 46 newly identified vulnerabilities

• Implement network segmentation to isolate solar management systems from critical infrastructure

• Create continuous monitoring for unusual activity on solar inverter management networks

• Develop contingency plans for power disruptions triggered by solar inverter compromise

Your backup power strategy is meaningless if attackers can seize control of the systems providing that power.

AI is Coming From Everywhere: The Shadow AI Crisis

While you're developing your centralized AI strategy, Gartner research reveals a growing shadow AI problem that could undermine your security posture. According to Gartner analysts Mary Mesaglio and Hung LeHong, AI is no longer solely the responsibility of data science teams—it's coming from everywhere in your organization.

How This Shadow AI Problem Works:

• By 2026, 80% of independent software vendors will embed AI into their applications

• Individual business departments are implementing specialized "bring-your-own-AI" (BYOAI) solutions for specific business needs

• The cumulative effect of multiple individual AI implementations creates overlap, unnecessary costs, and technical debt

• Most organizations lack governance structures to handle AI coming from multiple sources

Your Next Moves:

• Review your current application portfolio to identify embedded AI features in existing software

• Create an inventory of all department-level AI implementations across your organization

• Establish an AI committee to manage demand and coordinate AI initiatives

• Implement "TRiSM" technologies to mechanize AI policies and prevent AI from accessing sensitive data

• Develop a blended approach that balances centralized and decentralized AI governance

Even the most comprehensive AI security strategy will fail if you don't know how many AI systems are operating within your organization.

Oracle Cloud Breach Exposes Millions of Records as Hacker Threatens to Sell Data

A threat actor identified as Rose87168 claims to have accessed 6 million data records affecting more than 140,000 tenants in Oracle Cloud. Security researchers from Trustwave SpiderLabs and CloudSEK provided evidence supporting the breach claims, linking it to CVE-2021-35587, a critical vulnerability with a CVSS score of 9.8. The stolen data reportedly includes single sign-on credentials, LDAP passwords, and OAuth2 keys.

📌 Why It Matters: Your cloud security strategy is only as strong as your provider's security posture. This breach shows how a single vulnerability can expose millions of records across thousands of organizations simultaneously.

EU Commits $1.4 Billion to Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity

The European Commission will invest €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital skills through the Digital Europe Programme for 2025 to 2027. European Commission digital chief Henna Virkkunen emphasized that "securing European tech sovereignty starts with investing in advanced technologies."

📌 Why It Matters: This massive investment signals a shift toward regional technology sovereignty that may reshape global cybersecurity standards and create new compliance requirements for your organization's European operations.

Threat Actor Leaks 270,000 Samsung Customer Records Using 4-Year-Old Stolen Credentials

A hacker published approximately 270,000 customer records allegedly stolen from Samsung Germany's ticketing system using credentials compromised in 2021. The credentials belonged to a Spectos GmbH account used for monitoring and service quality improvements and were never rotated after being stolen by the Racoon infostealer. The leaked data includes names, addresses, email addresses, transaction information, and support interactions.

📌 Why It Matters: Credential hygiene failures continue to cause massive breaches years after the initial compromise. Your security strategy must include continuous monitoring for leaked credentials—not just at the time of the breach.

The threats you can’t see are the ones most likely to take you down. While everyone’s watching firewalls, attackers are targeting the systems that power your infrastructure and the AI running your decisions. If these aren't on your radar yet, they need to be—fast.

The invisible threats are now targeting your most critical infrastructure components. While you're focused on traditional IT security, attackers are targeting the energy systems that power your operations and the AI systems making critical business decisions.

In this security race, you can't afford to have blind spots in either direction.

// IT Pit Chief