Cyberattacks crippled thousands of car dealers. Here’s what to know.
Thousands of car dealers are struggling to do business this week because of two cyberattacks on an industry software provider. The cyberattacks on CDK Global, which provides software to nearly 15,000 car dealerships in the United States and Canada, led to a shutdown of sales, financing and payroll systems for many dealers. That has forced some car sellers to do business the old fashioned way. “Everything is messed up — we have to do everything manually,” said Kevin Red, a car salesman at AutoNation Honda Dulles in Sterling, Va. “There’s discomfort for everybody. For us, for management, for customers.” Here’s what to know about the cyberattacks’ impact. The cyberattacks on CDK Global led to a shutdown of sales, financing and payroll systems for many dealerships in North America.
What happened with CDK’s systems? Return to menu CDK experienced its first attack Tuesday evening, cybersecurity trade publications reported. The company shut down dealerships’ systems Wednesday as a precaution while the incident was investigated, spokesperson Lisa Finney told the Associated Press.
How long will the effects last? Return to menu Cybersecurity professionals say it could take weeks for CDK to fully restore all systems. “One cyberattack has disproportionate impacts,” said Jake Williams, a member of the faculty at the Institute for Applied Network Security, a cybersecurity consulting firm. “Most organizations just don’t have disaster recovery plans and business continuity plans that are high-quality and tested enough to deal with a large-scale attack.”
How will this get fixed? Return to menu “The first thing is just figuring out the exposure to the hack, really, so taking a moment to basically check through your systems, certainly find the point of compromise,” said Katie Brooks, the global cybersecurity policy director for Aspen Digital.
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