  The properties of electrically charged strange quark stars predicted by an
interacting quark matter equation of state (EoS) based on cold and dense
perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) are investigated. The stability of
strange stars is analyzed considering different models for the electric charge
distribution inside the star as well as for distinct values for the total
electric charge. A comparison with the predictions derived using the MIT bag
model is also presented. We show that the presence of a net electric charge
inside strange stars implies in a larger maximum mass in comparison to their
neutral counterparts. Moreover, we demonstrate that the pQCD EoS implies larger
values for the maximum mass of charged strange stars, with very heavy charged
stars being stable systems against radial oscillations. For an electric charge
distribution given by $q(r) = \beta r^3$, the pQCD EoS implies unstable
configurations for large values of the renormalization scale as well as for
large values of $\beta$, in contrast to the MIT bag model predictions.
